The Man Without Fear returns.
The Devil is having an identity crisis.
He quit his vigilante habits cold turkey a year earlier, when a certain unknown line was crossed.
Charlie Cox as Matt Murdock in ‘Daredevil: Born Again’.Giovanni Rufino/Marvel
The urge, however, remains.
The series he stars in faced a comparable quandary.
The title spoke volumes to fans.
Vincent D’Onofrio as Wilson Fisk in ‘Daredevil: Born Again’.Giovanni Rufino/Marvel
But as they say, the devil is in the details, and those details needed work.
Marvel took that time to review what they had already shot andcame to the conclusion that something was off.
“It was too, ‘Is it the show or is it not the show?'”
Elden Henson as Foggy Nelson and Nikki M. James as ADA Kirsten Mcduffie in ‘Daredevil: Born Again’.Giovanni Rufino/Marvel
meaning, is it the same drama as Netflix’sDaredevilor a reboot?
“It led to a feeling of, maybe we don’t have to define it.
Maybe we can play it loose,” he recalls, speaking to EW from his action-figure stacked office.
Deborah Ann Woll as Karen Page in ‘Daredevil: Born Again’.Giovanni Rufino/Marvel
Executive producer Sana Amanat, fresh off ofMs.
But, eventually, Cox received a call from the man himself.
“Over two years had passed since the show had come out.
Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) and ADA Kirsten Mcduffie (Nikki M. James) in ‘Daredevil: Born Again’.Giovanni Rufino/Marvel
It was 100 percent dead and buried for me.”
But those cameos “certainly got my imagination going,” Winderbaum admits.
And he suggestedthey fill it with Fisk.
“I’ve seen all of the Marvel stuff sinceIron Man.
We watched everything,” he says.
It just seemed like a no-brainer to me."
In other words, a revival series.
Is that why he’s packed away his cowl and thrown himself into his legal work?
“It’s not entirely accurate, but it’s a fair connection,” Cox teases.
“That’s going to expand and reach further and further.
“Both of them [carry] dark passengers inside of them,” Scardapane explains.
“They’re both wearing masks as they move through this story.
Daredevil is wearing a Matt Murdock mask and Kingpin is wearing a Wilson Fisk mask.
“They have a warmth towards each other because they give each other purpose.”
Though, everyone seems happy to talk about those too.
It’s no secretBorn Againwill be just as brutal as the Netflix original.
(Just read any previous interview on the matter.)
Phil Silvera, a second-unit director and stunt coordinator on that firstDaredevil, made sure of that.
There was even one stunt on set that made Cox audibly react.
“Every time he did it, I was like, ‘Ah!'”
“It was so brutal.”
“But they did quite well because [audiences] loved the characters,” he explains.
“They loved Vincent and Charlie, so there was a lot of goodwill there.”
“It was really a matter of adding to and giving context.
Woll initially found just the idea of her surprise comeback tricky to navigate.
“They hadn’t been there, and that felt painful and odd,” Cox recalls.
We were in Hell’s Kitchen, which was bizarre.
We didn’t really shoot in Hell’s Kitchen previously.
It was healing.”
“We’re just looking at each other,” she says of that day.
“We’re like, ‘Guys!
We’re here again.
Can you believe it?’
“I’m having good tinglies just thinking about it.”
They function best to push him in different ways and force him to confront their shared past.
That includes the introduction of Muse, played by a still-undisclosed actor.
“Those are some dark episodes for sure.
He crosses over fromMs.
Marvelfor at least one episode.
That presence speaks to something Winderbaum loves from the comics, that mixture of tones.
He likens Kapur’s role to Daredevil popping into the specific fourth-wall-breaking world ofShe-Hulk.
Marvel,” he says of the Khan family patriarch.
Scardapane acknowledges they’re a “better-oiled machine” now; no need for triaging this time.
Serial killer Muse, he notes, is one such “ripple effect that extends beyond” season 1.
What about other elements of Daredevil’s history from the Netflix series?
“One-hundred percent it’s in the back of our heads.
Eventually we’ll attempt to figure out a bit more with that,” Amanat says.
And what about the other Defenders?
Cox says he’s unaware of any other commitments beyond season 2.
At the very least, after he survived development hell, Marvel has renewed faith in this devil.
