The Punisher: Jon Bernthal says lightening the character up would be a disservice

Netflix put an end to all of their Marvel shows a few years ago, but the rights to the characters that had shows on the streaming service – Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Iron Fist, Luke Cage, and The Punisher – have all since reverted to Marvel Studios, who now have the option to work them into other Marvel Cinematic Universe projects. There have been rumors that they’re planning to do just that, with rumblings about Daredevil characters being especially strong, and there are many fans who would love to see the Netflix iterations of those characters return to the screen someday, some way. Jon Bernthal, who played The Punisher in his Netflix appearances, is currently doing press for the film King Richard, and during a conversation with The Hollywood Reporter he was asked if he could see his version of The Punisher returning in the MCU. He made it clear that if his Punisher does return, he has to be just as dark and serious as he was on Netflix.

THR asked Bernthal,

Marvel has now opened up the multiverse. So any extension of Marvel can now link up with the MCU, whether that’s the Netflix shows or Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man movies. Do you think your version of Frank Castle would work in the PG-13, action-comedy context of the MCU?”

Bernthal replied:

That character, in particular, has real, real, real deep, deep meaning for me and resonance in me. He’s really in my heart, man. He’s really in my bones. I’m enormously protective of that character. I’ve said before that there’s nothing in this world more important to me than my wife and my kids, and only until you understand that kind of love and what it really means to willingly die for somebody, [do you understand] what it would be like if somebody took them from you. That’s a road and a darkness and a rage that really, really scares me and brings me to places that I’ve worked the last 20 years to get away from. So I was really grateful, respectful and weary of the places where that role took me and the world in which I had to live in. That being said, that’s where that character needs to be. It needs to be a level of darkness. I think if there’s any let up on that character, you do a disservice to the character, to every iteration of the character, to every comic book that’s come before, and to all of the unbelievable fans of the character. This character means so much to people in the military. So like I said before, it’s not about whether you do the character; it’s about whether you can do it right, and I’m only interested in doing it right.”

It’s great to hear that Bernthal is still so passionate about the character, even almost three years after his short-lived show came to an end. When the Netflix shows were first released, we were all under the impression that they were canon to the MCU already. Things got a bit murky in that area in the years since, but now the multiverse has opened it all back up again. The Punisher series on Netflix wasn’t quite what I wanted to see from a Punisher show for most of its running time, but I would be glad to see Bernthal reprise the role.