With Drew Goddard in the pre-production stage for his directorial gig on Sony’s THE SINISTER SIX, his duties as showrunner for Marvel’s DAREDEVIL series on Netflix cannot be honored. With someone needed to oversee the 13 episode series, the company has turned to former SPARTACUS showrunner Steven S. DeKnight to take over day to day duties on DAREDEVIL.
Deadline reports that Goddard stepped down in late March but was able to complete the script for the first two episodes of DAREDEVIL and will remain an executive producer on the Netflix series.
Goddard’s departure appears to solely be due to the draw of writing and directing the big budget spin-off from THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2 rather than a disagreement between him and the studio. How this bodes for DAREDEVIL remains to be seen. DeKnight’s work on SPARTACUS was not exactly the high caliber many were expecting for the first Marvel series on Netflix. SPARTACUS was a pulpy and violent series in the vein of Zack Snyder‘s 300 but was not known as a top tier drama.
Hopefully this doesn’t spell doom for anyone’s hopes for Marvel’s small screen outings. No additional writers or potential directors for the series have been announced as of yet. DAREDEVIL is still expected to air sometime within the next year.