Born Again Star Charlie Cox, Vincent D’Onofrio Open Up About Creative Reboot

Summary

• Daredevil: Born Again
  stars Charlie Cox and Vincent D’Onofrio discuss Marvel Studios’ creative overhaul of the series.
• Actors praise Marvel Studios’ willingness to scrap work and start over to meet fan expectations.
• Daredevil: Born Again
  is set to premiere on Disney+ in 2025, with key cast members reprising their roles.

Daredevil: Born Again stars Charlie Cox and Vincent D’Onofrio have opened up about Marvel Studios’ decision to overhaul the series creatively. Marvel Studios not only shocked fans when they first confirmed Daredevil: Born Again was in development at San Diego Comic-Con back in 2022, but the next year dropped a bigger bomb following the production shutdown due to the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strike that they would give Daredevil: Born Again a complete reworking. The series is a continuation of the original Daredevil series that ran on Netflix from 2015 to 2018, and revisions to the series have been done to bring it closer to the original.

Daredevil actor Charlie Cox and Kingpin actor Vincent D’Onoforio attended Fan Expo Boston 2024. During an interview held at the convention (via ComicBook.com), the two actors spoke about the original plans for the series and how creatively they were involved with the series’ new direction. Both actors spoke highly of Marvel Studios’ willingness to scrap work that was already finished and start over to make sure the series lived up to the high expectations fans had rather than potentially disappointing them.

Charlie Cox:
“Marvel had been incredibly open-minded and willing to correct course, and incredibly supportive. Early on, we were trying something that was a bit different, and very quickly they were able to identify that wasn’t maybe working as well as it could’ve done. Where we are now, I think I can speak for both of us that we feel very happy.”

Vincent D’Onofiro:
“The best thing about the situation is what Charlie just said about the bosses at Marvel, and also the fact that Charlie and I were a team. We just supported each other in everything that each other wanted, whether we were in the scene or not. Whether it featured our characters, it didn’t matter. As a team, Charlie and I considered the story and the fans. Literally, I’m not sh*tting you. You guys, we considered you constantly and brought you up constantly.”

Daredevil’s Long Road to the MCU

When Daredevil premiered on Netflix on April 10, 2015, it was a major boost for the Marvel brand. It kicked off a new era of gritty, grounded television set within the Marvel Cinematic Universe and received near-universal praise, particularly for all the actors involved, from Charlie Cox’s Matt Murdock to Vincent D’Onofrio’s Kingpin as well as Deborah Ann Woll’s Karen Page and Elden Henson’s Foggy Nelson. While 2015 was difficult for Marvel at the movies, as Avengers: Age of Ultron and Ant-Man had people discussing superhero fatigue, Daredevil, and the following Defenders Saga series, Jessica Jones bookend those two films and showed Marvel had a bright future in television.

When Netflix started canceling the various Marvel superhero shows in 2018, fans quickly began campaigning for Daredevil to be revived. While the contract with Netflix stipulated that Marvel Studios could not use the characters for two years after their cancelation, that means that during 2020, while COVID-19 had shut down various productions and development was being worked on, Marvel Studios could truly start to plan out Daredevil’s return. December 2021 was a big day for fans of Daredevil, as on December 15th, the penultimate episode of Hawkeye ended with the reveal that the main villain was The Kingpin and D’Onoforio reprising his role. The next day, Spider-Man: No Way Home opened in theaters, and Charlie Cox reprised his role as Matt Murdock three years after Daredevil’s cancelation.

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The next year, Marvel confirmed that they had big plans for Daredevil. At San Diego Comic-Con 2022, it was confirmed that Cox would reprise his role as Daredevil in She-Hulk: Attorney at Law and that Vincent D’Onoforio would appear as Kingpin in the Disney+ series Echo, which Cox would also appear in. These two series would lay the foundation for Daredevil: Born Again, a revival of Daredevil and relaunch. Marvel originally hired Matt Corman and Chris Ord as head writers and executive producers, with Michael Cuesta directing the first episode.

In September 2023, after filming half the series, it was announced the series would be creatively overhauled with Corman and Ord replaced by Dario Scardapane as the showrunner. This was also when it was announced that Deborah Ann Woll and Elden Henson would reprise their roles as Karen Page and Foggy Nelson, respectively, after not being included in the original plans. While Sandra Holt was originally hired to replace Ayelet Zurer as Vanessa Fisk, it was later confirmed that Zurer would return. It appears that Marvel Studios is very intent on making Daredevil: Born Again feels as much a continuation of Daredevil as X-Men ’97 did for X-Men: The Animated Series.

Daredevil: Born Again
is expected to premiere on Disney+ in 2025.

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