This week marks the 20th anniversary of the Ben Affleck-led “Daredevil,” the widely mocked 2003 comic book film adaptation that arrived in the early days of the superhero boom as “Blade,” “X-Men” and “Spider-Man” had all taken off to great success.
Then 2003 arrived and the one-two punch of this and “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen” became cautionary tales of what not to do with a comic book property. Even so, the film still made $179 million at the box office and remains noted for its solid supporting casting.
It boasted fun performances by Colin Farrell as Bullseye and Jon Favreau as Foggy Nelson, along with commendable work by Michael Clarke Duncan as Kingpin and Jennifer Garner as Elektra. The film did well enough an “Elektra” spin-off was greenlit, but the result was even worse both critically and financially – sinking any franchise plans then and there.
To mark the occasion, Yahoo sat down the film’s director Mark Steven Johnson who has put the film’s failure down to his own decision to overcram the story of the movie:
“Looking back on it, one of the mistakes I made with the film was wanting to put everything in. I wanted to do Daredevil’s origin story, and I wanted to do the Elektra Saga and I wanted to introduce Bullseye and Foggy.
I wanted everything to be in there, but the film could only support so much. Then when you’re told to cut a half-hour out and and make it more of a love story, things start to feel rushed and not quite right. It’s a fan thing: when you love something so much, you want to tell it all.”
He also revealed he faced backlash over his decision to colorblind cast the role of Kingpin, a white character in the comics whereas Duncan is African-American:
“I got a lot of blowback. It’s the strangest Catch-22, because you want to have opportunities for everybody. You say, ‘I’m not going to pay attention to race: I’m just going to cast the right person for the role.’
But then you get killed for that [from some fans] who say: ‘The Kingpin should be white’ or ‘He’s not my Kingpin’ and all that kind of stuff. So I definitely got heat on that, but I don’t regret the decision at all. Michael was fantastic. It’s hard to find a guy who is that big and also that formidable, and Michael was definitely that guy. God bless him.”
Johnson was also asked about Netflix’s “Daredevil” series, soon to be revived over at Disney+ as “Daredevil: Born Again”. Johnson says:
“I think Vincent D’Onofrio is wonderful as the Kingpin. It’s all about finding the right actor for the character, you know? Vincent is a great Kingpin and Michael was a great Kingpin. And the show is terrific. It’s fun, because everybody gets to have their imprint on it: You don’t own the character, you just get to be the steward for a short time and then pass it on for someone else to do something with it.”
Click here to read more of the interview.
