Back in 2023, strikes halted “Daredevil: Born Again” several episodes into production and, upon reviewing what was done, Marvel made the decision to retool the entire series then and there.
Former showrunners Matt Corman and Chris Ord were let go, and new showrunner Dario Scardapane (“The Punisher”) came in – bringing back several past cast members from the Netflix series and tying it more heavily back into the former show’s continuity.
Speaking on a recent episode of Reel Rejects, Wilson Fisk actor Vincent D’Onofrio discussed the pre-reset version of the show and said everyone involved, from himself and co-star Charlie Cox to several of the producers, realised the show wasn’t what they wanted to make.
Asked by the outlet if the first two seasons form a larger arc about Matt Murdock and Wilson Fisk accepting their darker alter egos, D’Onofrio says:
“I appreciate what you’re saying. It’s a very kind of romantic view of it. It was really more about Charlie and I and a couple of the producers wanting to make a kick-ass Daredevil show. And then we realized eventually that the writers that we were working with didn’t have that in mind.”
D’Onofrio also dismissed the idea that Marvel execs were the problem, praising Kevin Feige and Louis D’Esposito for going with the overhaul and how the second season was truly the show they wanted to make in the first place:
“We as a group of creatives had meetings with the bosses, and because those guys are creatives, they joined us in this endeavor to turn things around.
One of the things about Marvel, even to this day, something that happened yesterday when we were shooting the third season, these guys, Feige and D’Esposito, they back us 100% creatively. They give us complete freedom. They never have once told us to back off, ever. They just keep saying, make it better, make it better.
That’s how that first season came out the way that it did. We were in a situation where we had to sort of crank what we had shot, reshoot some things, and start to make more Daredevils with the additional episodes that we had.
When that season was finished, we felt obligated, and all of us wanted to just make an incredible Daredevil, straight-up season from scratch. And we had all of this now history from the mayorship and all of poor little Daredevil’s problems to make a kick-ass season. And I think that’s why the second season ended up to be, I agree with you, pretty kick-ass.
Production on the third season is currently underway, and D’Onofrio says they are trying to push the show in a different direction without losing its core: “There’s going to be a lot of action in the third season and emotional journeys as well. We are well into it, and we are trying our hardest to make it different than the other two. But at the same time, it’s super ‘Daredevil’-esque.”
