Joe Carnahan hasn't had the best of luck in the past couple of years, what with Stretch disappearing off of Universal's release schedule and Daredevil going back to Marvel Studios just before he got to leave his mark on the character. We've seen what the reboot of the famed Marvel property (and infamous Ben Affleck feature) would have looked like, but now we have a little more information on the tone of the supposedly planned trilogy that Carnahan would have made for 20th Century Fox back in 2012.
MoviePilot's JabberTalky had an exclusive interview with the man himself to talk about many things, chiefly among them the plans for his Daredevil trilogy. The films were going to take place in 1973, 1979, and 1985; and according to Carnahan, each film was going to be influenced by the tone of the music that was popular at the time:
"I was going to do a kind of ‘cultural libretto’ and make the music of those eras a kind of thematic arc . So the first one would be Classic Rock, the second one would be Punk Rock and the third film would be ‘New Wave.’"
It's surprising that Joe Carnahan says he wanted to go for a Classic Rock feel for the '73 entry, as we all remember the sizzle reel he released had a tone that evoked more of a 70's Funk vibe than a Classic Rock tone. Pulling from The Warriors, The Untouchables, and other vintage fare of the surrounding eras, it set the tone of a film that took itself seriously, but did so with the comic flare that films like The Amazing Spider-Man possess in the modern era.
Maybe something changed in the script phase, but either way Carnahan looked and sounded like he had a really good feel for the character, particularly Frank Miller's grittier R-rating friendly version. The concept of theming each film based of an era of popular music is a rather novel idea, with each installment having its own unique musical identity that would in turn influence its thematic content. Picture The Kingpin's thugs decked out in Punk, or even New Wave club clothes, all ready to take on "The Man Without Fear" against the sound of synthesizers and guitars.
Sadly, that's not the universe we live in. We live in the universe where Drew Goddard, a genre stalwart and creative talent in his own right, is at the head of a Netflix series based on the property. While it might not be the same as Joe Carnahan's proposed trilogy of films, there's a possibility that it will still be a no holds barred festival of ass kicking. Not likely, seeing as Marvel Studios will want to have a wide audience tuning in on a regular basis, but fans can surely dream.
