Marvel Television brought the Devil of Hell's Kitchen back for the standalone adventure that MCU fans all around the world had been waiting to see for almost a decade. Daredevil: Born Again premiered on Disney Plus this spring, where it was met with rave reviews and a high level of fan excitement. And it was all understandable, for it had been eight years since the cast and crew of Netflix's Daredevil worked together on the original series.
But the Disney Plus revival series didn't always look that way. Originally stars Charlie Cox and Vincent D'Onofrio were the only returnees confirmed for the new offering, with the 18-episode season set to tell the story of new versions of the beloved characters removed from the lore that had been established in the previous show. This would have explained why the Daredevil and Wilson Fisk that we had met in recent Marvel Cinematic Universe installments were slightly different to their Netflix counterparts.
Thankfully, sense was seen and the series was retooled to be a sequel to the previous show. And now, Charlie Cox has revealed that he and D'Onofrio had been vocal about the potential issues that the original version of Born Again would ultimately encounter.
Charlie Cox opens up about Daredevil: Born Again's evolution and why it was right to return to the Netflix world
During a recent installment of Variety's Actors on Actors, Charlie Cox sat down with fellow Marvel star Joe Locke (who portrays Billy Maximoff in Agatha All Along) to discuss their respective projects. Locke brought up the evolution of Daredevil: Born Again and how he read about the show's mid-production retooling. Cox gave fans a peek behind the conversations that ultimately led to the decision to pull a creative reboot, revealing that he and co-star Vincent D'Onofrio were "respectfully vocal" about the risks of the original version of Born Again, saying:
"They came up with an idea were it was going to be more of... a procedural type show, and it was going to be 18 episodes. And we shot six of them... And Vincent D'Onofrio... and I were respectfully vocal about how unsure we were that it was tonally working and going in the right direction. [We were] trying to be good soldiers about it and give it our best shot..."
Cox's comments are once again a clear indicator of how passionate he and D'Onofrio are about their respective characters and the love that fans had for the original series. With that in mind, so many of the fans feel vindicated that they spoke up about their concerns for the show because, honestly, as great as it was to see Cox and D'Onofrio in the MCU, the thought of losing the versions of Daredevil and Kingpin that they played just didn't sit too well with audiences, especially when the original Netflix series was loosely tied to the MCU as it was.
Although it was never officially considered canon, there were enough threads to pull on to make it canon... and that's what they eventually did. Cox explains why it was important for Born Again to take notes from its predecessor.
"It felt like it wasn't quite right, and it felt like we were starting to alienate some of the elements that had made the show successful in the first place, which is probably not a good thing."
It turns out that the SAG and WGA strikes provided both the show's producers and Marvel itself with a chance to reflect on the footage that had been shot. It was during that time that they realized that the six episodes weren't working like they hoped and that, as Cox and D'Onofrio had pointed out, the show needed to be connected to its predecessor. And thus, the reboot took form, as Cox points out:
"When we came back it was completely revamped. They moved those six [episodes] to the middle of the season, they cut the order down to nine, they rewrote a pilot and two finale episodes, and they added scenes to kind of serialize the whole thing, and take it back to - closer - to what it was before."
It was also during this time that the decision was made to bring back more cast members from the original show. Although almost none of them appeared in the middle six episodes (that were comprised of footage from the original version of Born Again), they did appear in the episodes around that. Deborah Ann Woll's Karen Page returned in the premiere and the finale, while Elden Henson's Foggy Nelson returned for the premiere too. Wilson Bethel's Bullseye also appeared in the premiere and was written into some of the season's later episodes too. Jon Bernthal's Punisher had a role in episode 4 and returned for a bigger role in the finale.
The returning character with the biggest role outside of Cox and D'Onofrio's characters was Vanessa Fisk and there was a significant reason for that. Vanessa Fisk was in the original scripts for Daredevil: Born Again but the show had opted to recast the character from the Netflix series, with Sandrine Holt playing the role. However, once the decision to launch the creative reboot was made, Ayelet Zurer was brought back, filming all of Vanessa's scenes as the character took on her largest role in the Daredevil franchise yet.
Needless to say, fans felt that the right decision had been made in bringing back the original Daredevil cast members and making Born Again a sequel to that show. It made the story carry that much more weight and ensured that fans from the original show returned to watch the new installments. Although its run wasn't the smoothest due to the reshoots, it was clear that it was on the right track and those final few episodes set the stage for what looks to be a totally thrilling second season.
It goes without saying but, for the record let's just say it anyway, Charlie Cox and Vincent D'Onofrio were right.
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