Daredevil series also about the rise of Kingpin; tone compared to The Wire

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

The New Year is poised to be the biggest year yet for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. We have Joss Whedon’s AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON, Peyton Reed’s ANT-MAN, the new limited series Marvel’s Agent Carter and even more Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Then of course there is Daredevil, the first of five new Marvel shows hitting Netflix (next is A.K.A. Jessica Jones in 2016). Marvel’s Daredevil follows the journey of Matt Murdock, who was blinded as a young boy but imbued with extraordinary senses, now fighting against injustice by day as a lawyer, and by night as the super hero Daredevil in modern day Hell’s Kitchen, New York City.

The Daredevil series showrunner Steven S. DeKnight (Spartacus) and Jeph Loeb, Marvel’s Head of Television executive producer, recently spoke about what fans can expect from the series.

Speaking with EW Jeph Loeb talked about the shows connection with the MCU:

It does take place in the Marvel cinematic universe, it’s all connected. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that we would look up in the sky and see [Iron Man]. It’s just a different part of New York that we have not yet seen in the Marvel movies… Within the Marvel universe there are thousands of heroes of all shapes and sizes, but the Avengers are here to save the universe and Daredevil is here to save the neighborhood… There aren’t going to be people flying through the sky. There are no magic hammers.

As for whether fan-favorite villain Bullseye will be making an appearance, DeKnight doesn’t rule it out:

I wouldn’t say there’s no plans to include [Bullseye] in the series. It’s not not to say he wouldn’t be in the series at some point. But I think if you try to jam in too many characters, it just becomes a mess. And [Bullseye’s] story was told in the last iteration of Daredevil that anybody saw. My feeling was, ‘Why repeat it?’ And honestly, if you’re looking for a juicy, multi-faceted crime drama, Wilson Fisk was the obvious choice to play the antagonist. Bullseye is a little more cut and dry. Not to say you couldn’t make him fantastic over 13 hours, but Fisk really felt like the right yin to the yang for Matt, and for what we wanted to do this season.

DeKnight says that this season’s arc will focus primarily on the rise of Matt Murdock’s “Man without Fear” and Wilson Fisk’s Kingpin. He also likens the tone of the series to HBO’s The Wire:

Fisk has very many different aspects so it’s not all, ‘I want to conquer the city and make a lot of money,’ In our story, we tell the story of how he met his wife Vanessa and how they fell in love — our antagonist actually has a love story. That’s the love story you’re following, the one you’re invested in, and seeing how that affects him and changes him… We really wanted to take our cue from [films like] ‘The French Connection,’ ‘Dog Day Afternoon,’ ‘Taxi Driver,’ and make it very, very grounded, very gritty, very real. We always say we would rather lean toward The Wire than what’s considered a classic superhero television show.

DeKnight talked about the creative freedom of Netflix and how Daredevil isn’t going to be overtly violent:

When I came onto this there was no way I wanted to make this hard-R or NC-17,” I don’t think the material warrants that. It is a little grittier and edgier than Marvel has gone before, but we’re not looking to push it to extreme graphic violence, gratuitous nudity or anything like that. The story does not require that and I think would suffer if you pushed it that far.

From the sounds of it, this series has a lot of potential. It has smart people behind it who want to make something great; they’re focused on character and developing something "very real" which gives me hope for the series. I will be checking this one out for sure.

Netflix has yet to set an official release date for Daredvil’s first season but is set to debut in 2015. The series stars Charlie Cox (Matt Murdock), Deborah Ann Woll (Karen Page), Elden Henson (Foggy Nelson), Rosario Dawson (Claire Temple), Bob Gunton (Leland Owlsely aka The Owl), Vondie Curtis Hall (Ben Urich), Toby Leonard Moore (Wesley, Wilson Fisk’s right hand man), Ayelet Zurer (Vanessa Fisk), and Vincent D’Onofrio (Wilson Fisk aka Kingpin).

How do you feel about the series so far?