The latest superhero to be at the center of a reboot not even a decade after the first film will be Daredevil, and David Slade will be the director making it happen. According to Variety Fox has brought on the 30 Days of Night and The Twilight Saga: Eclipse director to handle the untitled project which is described as a "continuation" of the superhero story, but won't refer to anything from the 2003 Daredevil starring Ben Affleck.
Slade is getting this particular superhero directing job just months after losing out on Wolverine when Darren Aronofsky got the gig; he was also a candidate for The Hunger Games before Gary Ross signed on, and at lest as of February was considering a vampire-themed project The Last Voyage of Demeter. It's unclear when Fox wants to move forward with Daredevil and how it might fit into Slade's schedule, but given the mania for superhero reboots at the moment, I'd count on it sooner than later.
With new takes on the X-Men coming this summer, a new Superman and Spider-Man coming in the next few years and everything from Robocop to the Fantastic Four slated for reboots sometime in the near future, it should come as no surprise that Daredevil-- one of the few Marvel heroes not owned by Disney as part of their Marvel partnership, and one that likely would have reverted to Fox soon had they not made a new film-- is falling victim as well. But anyone who wanted to argue against Mark Harris's recent claim that originality is really and truly dead in Hollywood will have a hard time getting around this news. Despite the fact that Daredevil was already at the center of one unsuccessful big-budget movie, Fox is relying on the character as a tested property, something they're far more likely to spend money on than, say, something original or not remotely connected to a comic book.
Hopefully there are enough hardcore Daredevil fans out there to be excited by this news, because from where I stand, this is just another lame attempt to juice the superhero genre and milk money out of a character that, not even ten years ago, audiences conclusively stated they weren't all that interested in. Talk me down, or join my misery, in the comments.
