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Did the writers strike save Daredevil: Born Again? Charlie Cox shares his side of the very public turmoil the series has faced.
One of the biggest bombshells dropped by Marvel in 2023 was the announcement that Daredevil: Born Again would undergo a near-complete creative overhaul. While some scenes shot by the original team would be kept for budget reasons, the series was all-but stripped down to its bare parts, rebuilt by former The Punisher contributor Dario Scardapane with consultation by Charlie Cox and Vincent D’Onofrio.
A lot of questions surrounded the decision to completely overhaul Daredevil: Born Again, and still do to this day. Namely, how Marvel could get so far into production on the new series before realizing that something was fundamentally broken. Charlie Cox gave some insight into the decision during a recent chat with GQ, revealing that he and Vincent D’Onofrio initially tried to keep an open mind about the direction the series was taking.
“The thinking was, Well, we don’t want to do the same thing. We’ve done that. Vincent and I were both not 100 per cent convinced what we were doing at the time was the right path, but we’re both good soldiers and professionals, and we were trying to be open-minded.”
How Daredevil: Born Again Was Reborn
It’s understandable that Charlie Cox and Vincent D’Onofrio wouldn’t want to rock the boat. While they had always been a part of Marvel, their original series was mostly kept at an arms length, as opposed to Daredevil: Born Again which seemingly become a flagship release for the company. Luckily, the team had a chance to evaluate their work when the entire industry shut down, leading to the choice to take a creative overhaul.
“The writers’ strike happened, then the actors’ strike, which gave the producers an opportunity to look at our episodes and decide that it wasn’t quite working,” Vincent D’Onofrio explained in the same profile. “We made it known that we were not happy, and the big bosses, especially Kevin [Feige], listened to us.”
“[Daredevil: Born Again] feels much more in keeping with the kind of stuff we did at Netflix.” Cox concluded “In a bizarre twist of fate, the strikes that were so terrible for so many people in the industry ended up being the best thing that happened for our particular show.”
It certainly would have been easier for Charlie Cox, Vincent D’Onofrio and Marvel to simply cut their losses with Daredevil: Born Again and release a substandard project on Disney Plus. However, it seems that there is at least some form of care being put into the series. While that doesn’t necessarily mean the show will be good, it does at least give it a fighting chance.
Daredevil: Born Again will release in March 4, 2025 on Disney Plus. Stay tuned for the latest news regarding the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel for more content!
