Daredevil: Born Again (Disney+)

[Silver Nemesis]

Chris Brewster, who was Cox's stunt double on the Netflix shows and played a big role in the action side of things, has given a very worrying interview about Born Again. He's not involved with the new series, but he has some troubling insights. According to Brewster:

"Marvel has told every person working on that show that they don't want Born Again to look anything like the Netflix Daredevil series.

Trust me, not only did I work on the show, I was one of the biggest fans of the show. I think that the Marvel Netflix Daredevil was a masterpiece.

I think that the casting was perfect. I think that every showrunner, every person who worked on that show, was a genius. It was an incredible experience and in my opinion, and like most people agree on, it was Marvel's best streaming show. I think that Charlie and Vincent absolutely crushed it as their characters. I think that every person who worked on the show absolutely nailed it.

I think that, now that the MCU has taken over the character, they are really, really hurting it.

If you watched She-Hulk, they turned Daredevil into a cartoon. It's all animated and it looks bad. I love CG to enhance real movement, but if you don't have any real movement, it just becomes a cartoon. It's just CG. There's no weight to it.

And what always made the action on Daredevil so good is that it was visceral. You felt what Charlie was feeling. Between his performance, and just being in there, in the action. And anything that you saw, we really did, you know. We had to put somebody on a wire. [When] We needed something to enhance the movement we would [use CG], but it was never a cartoon. It was live-action. And you will never match the energy that live-action has.

So I think you know, that She-Hulk was a massive step-down as far as the movement goes and the action. Echo isn't out yet but I've heard it's just as bad. I'd heard they were going to Batgirl it because they weren't happy with it, and now they're doing reshoots and they're planning on airing it – but I think that could also do with the fact that there's a strike, and there's not a lot of content right now, so they're like 'Well, we have it made already'.

Ultimately, Born Again, I had no doubt that they were gonna reach out to me. Charlie specifically requests me on everything, he always goes out of his way and fights for me to be there, and he asked them over and over to bring me in, and I never even got a phone call.

Ironically, nobody who worked on seasons one, two, or three, went back. They really, truly don't want it to be anything like the Marvel Netflix Daredevil. So, nobody that worked on the original series, other than the cast that they're bringing back, is coming back.

There were some truly, truly wonderful people who worked on that show, and I think they really added to the magic of that show, and I think that Marvel's making a big mistake. But what are you going to do?

https://boundingintocomics.com/2023/07/03/original-daredevil-stuntman-says-marvel-studios-told-every-person-working-on-that-show-that-they-dont-want-born-again-to-look-anything-like-the-netflix-series/

His comments about Echo gel with rumours I've been hearing for a while now. Supposedly the show's a disaster of She-Hulk proportions and Marvel's had to reshoot most of it and might even cut it down from eight episodes to just four or six.

I really hope the MCU Daredevil is a separate character from the Netflix version, because ever since She-Hulk his future has been looking increasingly bleak. They already created the perfect live action take on the Man Without Fear, with all the pieces in place for a successful continuation, and now they're screwing it up for no good reason.

[thecolorsblend]

I shall try being charitable by saying that quality appears to be taking a backseat to branding. By the look of things, Marvel is aiming for a consistent style across all their media. And if the Netflix stuff has to suffer because of that, so be it.

It should go without saying that I think this is a mistake. Because the Netflixverse was stronger than the Arrowverse during the latter's prime. The only real black sheep in the family seems to be Iron Fist. The other shows all have their fan followings. Especially Daredevil.

This is a mistake. And the Daredevil character will suffer because of this.

Say whatever you want about the 2003 film. But at least that film erred on the side of trying to honor the character. But the more news comes out about BA, the less it sounds like the MCU Daredevil will honor anything.

This truly is an exasperating situation.

[Silver Nemesis]

The latest rumour is that Muse is going to appear in Born Again. He was on my list of villains I wanted to see in the Netflix show, and I was hoping they'd adapt parts of his debut story 'Dark Art' in season 5 or 6 (season 4 should've featured Bullseye and the Larry Cranston Mister Fear and been loosely based on the 'Out' storyline by Bendis and Maleev). But Muse is one of those sick disturbing villains that requires a TV-MA/hard R rating. He's a serial killer who turns his victims' corpses into twisted works of art and leaves them around New York for people to find. He creates paintings out of human blood and sculptures out of dismembered body parts.

Muse would've fit in perfectly with the dark gritty tone of the Netflix show, but I can't see him working in a goofy family-friendly Disney+ series inspired by the Mark Waid or Silver Age Daredevils. Not unless they change him beyond all recognition.

I wish they'd just let the Netflix team pick up where they'd left off.

[thecolorsblend]

If they're not going to go all the way with Muse (and let's just admit it, they won't), then I don't understand the decision to use the character at all.

Why not a character like Stilt-Man, who's been the butt of jokes in the comics for decades now? Rereading the first 12 or 15 issues of Silver Age Daredevil can be an uneven experience. But there are some villains in those issues that could easily lend themselves to the MCU tone.

But Muse? I just can't get my head around this decision. Why not give Freddy Krueger butter knives as fingers? Or put Q-tips on Pinhead's face? Or reimagine Jigsaw as a villain who tickles you with feathers if you make the wrong choice?

Why neuter a character that was intended to be dark and edgy?

[The Laughing Fish]

DeKnight calls out Disney for their shady tricks for producing this soft reboot.
https://www.sportskeeda.com/pop-culture/daredevil-reboot-born-again-criticized-former-showrunner-steven-deknight-old-disney-scam

[thecolorsblend]

"It's an old Disney scam where they slightly rename a series to reset contract terms back to first season."

This... is interesting. And it adds up. I can't believe I didn't think about this myself. I chalked the soft reboot aspect to somebody wanting this incarnation of Daredevil to be more in tune with the MCU's house style. But DeKnight's explanation is probably a lot closer to the mark.

[Silver Nemesis]

Born Again seems to have been delayed until the beginning of 2025. More casting details have emerged recently, including confirmation that Jon Bernthal's Punisher is appearing. Two female characters from the comics have also been confirmed. Nikki M. James is playing Kirsten McDuffie, who was the main love interest during Mark Waid's run. And Margarita Levieva is playing Heather Glenn, who was the principal love interest during the Miller/Janson run before Denny O'Neil killed her off.

Arty Roushan is playing Buck Cashman, better known as the comic villain Bullet. In the comics Bullet is meant to be 6'11 and 390lbs. He's literally bigger than Bane.

And this is who they've cast to play him in the TV show.

It could be one of those situations where they take a character's name from the comics without really adapting the character himself. Or perhaps they're going with a CGI motion capture approach.

The cast list also includes a female character named 'BB Urich' who is presumably a relative of Ben Urich, or else a gender swapped reimagining of him. And Clark Johnson is playing someone called Cherry. This might be the corrupt politician Randolph Cherry who featured during Frank Miller's run, but if so that character already appeared in the first season of the Netflix series played by a different actor. So this would be another role that's been recast.

[Travesty]

Looks like they're resetting. Yikes!

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/daredevil-marvel-disney-1235614518/

[thecolorsblend]

The problem with this project is that it's hard to tell if Marvel is doing things this way out of apathy, spite or a sincere desire to reboot using some of the original cast.

Kind of says a lot about the state of things that their agenda isn't clearer.

[The Laughing Fish]

The problem with this project is that it's hard to tell if Marvel is doing things this way out of apathy, spite or a sincere desire to reboot using some of the original cast.

Kind of says a lot about the state of things that their agenda isn't clearer.

If the Echo show stays true to the trailer that was released last week, there may be hope for Born Again. The Echo trailer resembles a lot more like Netflix Daredevil than either Hawkeye or She-Hulk. It's brooding, violent, and heavy, as it shows Kingpin robbing Echo of her innocence as a child and becoming a bad influence on her ever since. If the sudden overhaul of Born Again results in a more mature tone then I'm all for it.

With The Marvels bombing even harder than The Flash over the weekend, I expect the MCU to start making cancellations on projects that haven't started filming yet. Despite announcing delays to 2025, I predict the Blade reboot and Thunderbolts will be scrapped, and all of the other underperforming Disney Plus shows, i.e. Ms Marvel and She-Hulk, will get cancelled. I don't even think Oscar Isaac is coming back as Moon Knight because his show had less streaming views than She-Hulk.

I don't believe Disney will follow WBD's footsteps in writing off the next Captain America, so Brave New World should be safe for release. But I did read today that the writer for Avengers: The Kang Dynasty has been fired and now there is a rumour going around Kang the Conqueror will be scrapped completely because of the controversy surrounding Jonathan Majors. Next year is Echo and Deadpool 3 only, but if Echo is a success and Deadpool 3 underwhelms to the masses then maybe there's a greater drive to make Born Again stay true to its Netflix predecessor.

Whatever happens, and as you already pointed out in another thread, you can't make expensive superhero stuff anymore, so we should expect the projects to be smaller in scale going forward.