Much like with Deadpool and his trademark brand of ribald humor and ultra-violence, Daredevil is a dark, gritty character in the Marvel Universe whose character and subject matter shouldn’t be tampered with too much. Most comic fans would agree with this notion — even if the Man Without Fear is making the move from Netflix to Disney+ in the upcoming Daredevil: Born Again series. Thankfully, some very key figures involved with the show agree that Daredevil won’t get too Disneyfied.
Namely showrunner Dario Scardapane and Daredevil/Matt Murdock actor Charlie Cox, who sat down for a recent interview to shed some light on both the show’s atmosphere and how closely it would follow the gritty, violent tone of the well-received series on Netflix.
“It had been conceived as more of a legal procedural, and we really brought it back towards an action-based New York crime story,” Scardapane told EW. “The real trick was to have the DNA of the old Netflix show, but then push it forward into something very new.”
“The thing that we kept talking about was,” Cox said, “this show has had the success that it’s had and has appealed to a very specific demographic because it’s one of the few superhero shows that is so dark and sinister at times.”
Cox added, “Vincent and I both felt like if you lose that, you are at risk of losing the identity of our show. So we really pushed for the show to remain geared towards an older audience and not dumbed down to kind of capture a wider net of people. I think in some ways it’s even darker than a lot of the stuff we’ve done in the past.”
Although Marvel Studios has officially profiled Daredevil: Born Again with a TV-MA rating and Cox has expressed that it will be darker in some ways than the Netflix series, he also expressed to NME back in December 2022 that it would be “less gory” than the Netflix series by comparison.
“My opinion is this character works best when he’s geared towards a slightly more mature audience,” Cox said. “My instinct is that on Disney+ it will be dark but it probably won’t be as gory. I would say to [people hoping the Disney+ show emulates and captures the vibe of the Netflix show], we’ve done that. Let’s take the things that really worked, but can we broaden? Can we appeal to a slightly younger audience without losing what we’ve learned about what works?”
Though it’s technically a fourth season of the Netflix Daredevil show, Cox believes that it retains enough of the original series’ feel and tone to keep its fans happy.
Daredevil: Born Again is set to stream on Disney+ on March 4th, 2025. Charlie Cox will reprise his role as Daredevil alongside Deborah Woll’s Karen Page and Elden Henson’s Foggy Nelson.
What do you think of the fact that Charlie Cox says the upcoming Disney+ Daredevil series will go darker than the Netflix series in some ways? Do you think it needs to retain the gritty, violent aspects of the Netflix series or can Daredevil work as a more lighthearted character as well, especially under the Disney+ banner?
