Daredevil is…born again! Nearly ten years after the original Daredevil series premiered on Netflix, everyone’s favorite gritty lawyer turned hard-hitting vigilante is back. This time, Daredevil joins the Marvel Cinematic Universe in a resurrected series that seemed like it would never happen.
With the return one of the best superhero shows of all time, I sat down with the cast and filmmakers of Daredevil: Born Again, including stars Charlie Cox and Vincent D’Onofrio, directors and executive producers Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson, executive producer Sana Amanat, and showrunner/executive producer Dario Scardapane.
Spoiler warning – These conversations, especially with Cox and D’Onofrio, contain major spoilers! Read on and watch the interviews AFTER watching the Daredevil: Born Again premiere!
“I was convinced that this was never going to happen. I really thought that when the show was canceled in 2018, that was the end of the road. And, you know, I was so honored by the the campaign, the Save Daredevil campaign, and what those folks were doing, but I thought they were crazy. I never thought it would amount to anything,” Cox said about the prospects of the series returning. “Vincent, to his credit, never lost hope, you know, never had any doubt. But yeah, when we got the call, I was blown away and I’m still pinching myself.”
Marvel Studios brought Daredevil and Wilson Fisk back slowly and methodically, sprinkling their appearances throughout the MCU in films (Spider-Man: No Way Home) and other shows (She-Hulk, Hawkeye, and Echo) before bringing back the full series.
“It was exciting to get the call, you know. It was something that I was waiting for for a long time, and I remember, I was in my office when the secretary called me and said ‘I have Kevin [Feige] for you,’ and I was like, ‘Oh okay, here we go. This feels like this is going to be good.’ And that was for the first call to do Hawkeye and to bring us into the MCU; that was the first call. And then eventually Echo, and then I got another call eventually from Kevin to say, ‘We’re ready to do a series again,'” D’Onofrio said. “All of that stuff is so exciting to hear because Charlie and I have worked on these characters for a long time. We worked really hard, we both felt like the Netflix show was an extraordinary experience for us, and that everybody on that team, from the writers, to the crews, to everybody, to all the actors, really just did their best to make that show, the Netflix show, as good as we can. And we’ve, Charlie and I, have always wanted another stab at it since they took it away from us, and we finally got it and it was quite exciting.”
While Cox and D’Onofrio reprise the roles that they defined in Matt Murdock and and Wilson Fisk, much has changed through their respective journeys and much will change immediately within the first few minutes of the new series.
“Something happens at the beginning of this season, which is an incredibly traumatic event, not just for Matt Murdoch I think, but for Charlie Cox and for theMarvel Cinematic Universe as a whole,” Cox said about the game changing series premiere. “The loss of Foggy Nelson, who is the heartbeat of the MCU and has been such a massive part of this world and this this show, played beautifully by Elden Henson for so many years. But, you know, we wanted to come back, after many years, we needed to make a splash. We wanted to go big and bold and make sure the audience feel unsettled, like they don’t know what, anything could happen in this world. Nothing’s safe and it ends up being a wonderful catalyst for the stuff to come. But I think it’s safe to say that Matthew Murdock will never be the same again.”
For Fisk, he pursues a new path to power that is a stark departure from what we’ve seen in the original series, but one that fans of the comic books will find familiar.
“I consider him like a vampire. Like, it’s impossible to live in the daylight. But for this particular plan that he has, he has to live in the daylight, which is this campaign that he’s on. He’s in the campaign to expand his reach for power and control, and you’ll have to tune in to find out what happens,” D’Onofrio teased.
Series showrunner Dario Scardapane, who was brought on board to revamp the series following a creative overhaul, explained that one of the major changes he made was to bring Foggy Nelson’s death to the forefront, instead of having it happen off-camera.
“In many ways, the first 10 minutes of the show are telling you so much about what’s to come. And some of it you may not see right at the first time. The seeds are all planted there, and the things that happen are Earth-shattering, and they’re meant to be,” Scardapane said. “And the central event that you talk about, originally was off screen. And for me, that couldn’t be. We had to see it. We had to feel it. And we had to be with Matt during one of the toughest times, because he’s going to carry that forward forever.”
In order to bring Scardapane’s vision to life, Marvel brought in the dynamic directing duo of Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson, who worked on Moon Knight and Loki season 2. Moorhead and Benson are known for stayed focused on the humanity of their characters while telling a grand story around them.
“Daredevil is…it’s got a bit of a mythic quality, you know. Of course, it’s very street level. However we were telling something that’s also got bit of an operatic scale to it, like a Greek tragedy. So one of the ways that we approached that, one of the the many, many, is in our camera work,” Moorhead said.
What’s fascinating is that Moorhead and Benson used the camera’s perspective to tie into Daredevil’s Catholic faith. In this series, the camera is the eye of God.
“If we’re talking about a character who’s defined by his Catholic faith, he’s always concerned that him being Daredevil will at some point cause him to lose the grace of God, right? And he’ll cross some line, and that’s why he has these rules for himself. And at the end of it he does cross this line,” Moorhead said. “And so for us, the one take [at the start of the show], but also a lot of the camera work within the show, has this omniscient feeling. We like to use this phrase, it’s not a person, but it’s alive. So it’s kind of like the eyes of God or an angel or a demon. Something’s watching him.”
Fans of Daredevil know that the character is often defined by the way he responds to tragedy. His life has been full of tragedy, and yet Murdock continues to fight. Executive producer Sana Amanat, who co-created Kamala Khan and also worked on the Marvel Studios series Ms. Marvel, talked about how Murdock represents hope in the midst of overwhelming darkness.
“I think because he is so complicated, he’s had so much trauma in his life and, as you know, in this season he has a lot of trauma as well, I think we are talking about the concept of hope and also especially as you’re grappling with grief and especially as you’re grappling with trying to understand who you are and who you are in the universe,” Amanat said. “I think that is something that Matt Murdock constantly does. He is known as The Man Without Fear for a reason and I think that’s so, quite powerful, considering he is a a man who’s been blinded but he still fights for justice.”
Watch the full interviews for so much more great insight from the cast and filmmakers. Daredevil: Born Again premieres March 4th on Disney+.
Ron is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of POC Culture. Â He is a big believer in the power and impact of pop culture and the importance of representation in media.
