What Do We Know About the upcoming Marvel Cinematic Universe series Daredevil: Born Again? More in recent weeks than ever before. The sequel to the Netflix street-level superhero series has been one of the most anticipated MCU projects since it was announced. With Vincent D’Onofrio and Charlie Cox already having appeared in Hawkeye, Echo, She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, and Spider-Man: No Way Home, fans have a tease of what they can expect from this new dive into Matt Murdock and Wilson Fisk. So, let’s take a look at what we know about Daredevil: Born Again.
Season 1 will have nine episodes and has a release date
Development on Daredevil: Born Again began back in March of 2022. At the time, Matt Corman and Chris Ord were hired as head writers with the aim to create a lighter tone than the Netflix series and a more episodic structure – in fact, the original approach was to turn the show into “a courtroom drama.” When filming began in March 2023, it was suspended months later because of the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes. Marvel Studios re-evaluated the show during the strikes and decided in September to release Matt Corman and Chris Ord, replacing them with new showrunner Dario Scardapane. Some of the initial directors still receive credit on the show, but as part of the overhaul, Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, the helmers behind episodes of Moon Knight and the second season of Loki, were hired as the primary directors. Scardapane shifted the series to a more serialized structure with direct connections to the Netflix series. Season 1 will now consist of nine episodes (the initial aim was eighteen episodes), and the series premieres on Disney+ on March 4th, 2024 (as revealed at New York Comic Con).
Scardapane had this to say about the creative overhaul: “It had been conceived as more of a legal procedural, and we really brought it back towards an action-based New York crime story. The real trick was to have the DNA of the old Netflix show, but then push it forward into something very new.“
Speaking with SFX magazine, Scardapane said that the creative overhaul was necessary because, while the footage that had been shot had some really strong points, “it wasn’t feeling in line with what Daredevil had been established to be.” Cox added, “There was a U-turn after the strike, where we were headed in one direction which was interesting and valid. The argument was, if we’re coming back after all these years, we don’t want to just do exactly the same thing. Marvel looked at the episodes and knew it wasn’t quite working. We shot a whole new pilot and they reorganized what we had filmed to make it feel more like the show we had shot all those years previously. Given what a Herculean task that was, it’s very impressive what they achieved.” So now, the show ties back to the Netflix series. Scardapane said, “At the very end of the Netflix show, Foggy, Karen and Matt had a dream written out on the back of a napkin. We start with that dream. It’s not a dream that needs too much explanation; three good friends go into business together.“
What is it about?
The exact plot of the series is unknown, but the numerous returning cast members from the Netflix series makes this a direct continuation of that storyline. It has been confirmed that the events of Born Again pick up five years after the events of the Netflix show. Based on Matt Murdock’s appearance in She-Hulk: Attorney at Law and Echo, he is still out fighting crime at a street level. The conclusion of Echo saw Wilson Fisk returning to New York and watching a news broadcast about a need for new leadership in the Big Apple. This the series picks up from there, adapting the comic book arc that found Kingpin running for Mayor of NYC. The title itself, Born Again, is a reference to the religious faith of Matt Murdock and an homage to the Frank Miller comic of the same name, which saw Kingpin manipulating Matt’s feelings for Karen Page to destroy Daredevil. With Karen and Matt not an item on the show, this could be changed.
Cox previously told Empire, “There was talk early on about reinventing the whole thing, to see if Matt was a slightly different person. But it ended up more of a continuation. A lot of the history follows on. The relationships and dynamics set up in the previous seasons still exist. A few years have passed. In that time, Matt, Foggy, and Karen have found a pretty good rhythm. Matt’s made peace with his role both as a lawyer and a vigilante. Then, of course, shit hits the fan.“
Netflix characters are back
The cast of the series includes Charlie Cox, Vincent D’Onofrio, Elden Henson, Deborah Ann Woll, Jon Bernthal, Wilson Bethel, and Ayelete Zurer, reprising the roles of Matt Murdock / Daredevil, Wilson Fisk / Kingpin, Murdock’s associates Foggy Nelson and Karen Page, Frank Castle / The Punisher, Benjamin “Dex” Poindexter / Bullseye, and Vanessa Marianna Fisk. Also in the cast are Margarita Levieva as Matt Murdock’s love interest Heather Glenn, Michael Gandolfini as a character named Daniel Blade, Genneya Walton as BB Urich, Jeremy Earl as Anti-Vigilante Task Force member Cole North, and Lou Taylor Pucci, taking on an unspecified role.
During an appearance at Fan Expo San Francisco, Bethel said (as reported by Collider), “I think one of the things that’s interesting is, I mean, maybe it’s different on a sitcom or something like that, but if you’re on a show for over a period of time and the characters are aging together sort of in real-time, and if the show is well written and the writers are sort of responding to that reality transpiring, the wrinkles or their hair, et cetera, then in theory, the character is evolving in a way, whether or not the show was on air. So there’s kind of like this funny thing stepping back after five years where Born Again will pick up with that amount of time having transpired. The show doesn’t pick up the day after we last saw it. It picks up five years later. And so in theory, these are characters who have all lived five years of life and all of the twists and turns that you take in the meantime. So whether or not even those stories are necessarily on screen, there’s just that little extra bit of life in there, which I think is… as an actor, it gives you an opportunity to bring whatever your own journey has been in that time and they get sort of a little longer in the tooth.“
Wait, is this a sequel series or a reboot?
The original vision for Born Again was to make it stand apart from the Netflix series, but when Marvel Studios scrapped the completed episodes that had been filmed, the new direction follows directly from the original Daredevil. Once we know more of the plot we will have a more definitive answer about where this show fits into the MCU as a whole, but this seems to mean that Jessica Jones, Iron Fist, Luke Cage, and The Defenders are officially canon as well.
The showrunner, Scardapane, did admit that he had to re-think some things so his vision for the show could fit into the overall plan for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which Daredevil has merged into through appearances in Spider-Man: No Way Home, She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, and Echo. “Marvel has a master plan, and what you’re doing causes ripple effects. I would pitch stuff very early and I would hear that they had other plans. I have plenty of leeway up until I hit the larger-scale plan for the MCU. So I try to ignore some stuff [from the wider universe]. We establish a very specific Daredevil, both in terms of his dilemma, down to the suit and where we’re picking him up in his life. You can say that Daredevil is canon in the MCU, those other events [in Spider-Man and She-Hulk] happened, but some of them we are not leaning into. His one-night stand with She-Hulk may be one of those things. They’ve moved Matt through other corners of the MCU, and now he’s back in his own story. I don’t want to give anything away, but you’re going to see a character [in our show] you never thought you would, but they get folded into the story in a manner that is organic and exists in our world. New York, in the current state of the MCU, has a lot of stuff going on.“
As for how Daredevil: Born Again compares to the Netflix show, Scardapane said, “There is more fun in the moments with these characters and a lot less navel-gazing than before. The earlier show, at its best, was fantastic. At its worst, it was two characters in a room talking about what a hero is. I felt that had been done. I’m not taking swipes. I just didn’t want to hear characters grousing about their lot in life. I wanted to see them doing things.” As popular as the Netflix Daredevil is, it could be criticized for being too slow and chatty. Having worked on The Punisher for the streamer, Scardapane knows very well why it was paced the way it was. “One of our edicts [at Netflix] was, ‘Longer scenes.’ You had these long five-page scenes of characters hashing it out in order to make space between these massive action sequences. The way stuff has evolved since then, we’re able to do big action sequences at a lot more pace. I really feel that Netflix’s Daredevil, which I know in my blood, was much more noir, and this show is more New York crime story. It has elements of The Sopranos and King of New York. There’s a feeling for those classic ’90s crime tales. It has a pace and a scope that, for a lot of reasons, Netflix wasn’t able to do. They were very dark, cinematically, not necessarily story-wise, although there were some dark elements. We’re much darker. This is as far as a Disney+ show has ever gone.“
Season 2 starts filming soon
Before 2024 was over, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige let it be known that season 2 of the series is set to go into production sometime in 2025. Cox has since revealed that season 2 will already be filming by the time the first season premieres in March! Cox told FAN EXPO San Francisco attendees (with thanks to SuperHeroHype for the transcription), “It’s been so many years since we released any Daredevil content, I’m really excited about it. By the time we release [Born Again] on March 4th, we’ll already be shooting season 2. So, it’s just a gift that keeps on giving, really.“
Trailer
The bone-crushing trailer for Daredevil: Born Again season 1 dropped online in mid-January and can be seen right here:
Stay tuned to JoBlo.com as we learn more about Daredevil: Born Again and all of your other favorite shows. What do you expect to see in the upcoming Daredevil series? Let us know in the comments and click the like and subscribe to follow all of our latest original videos.
