The reworked Daredevil: Born Again will be a “new direction” akin to X-Men ’97 says Brad Winderbaum, Marvel’s streaming boss.
It’s been a while since we heard that Marvel Studios had decided to significantly alter its plans for Daredevil: Born Again, the TV show that would bring Charlie Cox’s horned crime-fighter properly into the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Daredevil enjoyed an acclaimed multi-season run on Netflix , but although that show and those connected to it, such as Jessica Jones and several others, were supposedly part of the MCU, in practice things were very different.
When the rights to Daredevil eventually returned to Marvel, there was plenty of excitement regarding Cox bringing his interpretation of the character into the MCU proper. That was until Marvel’s output, especially its TV division, came under some serious flak and new levels of quality control were implemented.
This meant that Daredevil: Born Again – which had already completed a significant amount of its production – was sent back to the drawing board and retooled. Until now, we’ve only heard little bits of info regarding how the show might have been reshaped but now Marvel’s Head of TV, Streaming and Animation, Brad Winderbaum, has offered a fresh update on Marvel’s new Official Marvel Podcast.
“It’s similar in some ways to X-Men ’97 because it’s reviving something that the fans love,” says Winderbaum, “but it’s taking it in a new direction… These characters have matured. The universe is different than it was. Things have changed. Society has changed. Matt [Murdock] and Wilson [Fisk] have changed, and their characters are going to collide in ways we’ve never seen before. It’s no longer enough to try to murder each other. There’s a whole game of politics at play.”
Read more: Daredevil | Marvel is looking to change the way it does TV
The reference to X-Men ’97 is one that will surely be welcomed by fans given that the animated show is one that – given Marvel’s struggles of late – has been widely acclaimed. It looks like instead of simply paying lip service to the Netflix Daredevil series as was said to have been the case in the original version of Born Again, it now looks like the revised version will play into the show’s lore in more impactful ways.
We don’t yet know when Daredevil: Born Again will hit Disney+, but we’d expect to see it sometime next year. Given that the upcoming Deadpool & Wolverine looks set to give the studio a much-needed jolt of relevance, that could set the foundation for a 2025 that sees Marvel returning to form.
Alongside next summer’s The Fantastic Four debuting on the big screen, this new version of Daredevil: Born Again will be key to Marvel recapturing the hearts of fans on small screens. Whether that happens remains to be seen, but it’s certain that interesting times lie ahead.
