Following the release of Agatha All Along last fall, next on the slate of live-action upcoming Marvel TV shows is March’s Daredevil: Born Again, a continuation of the Netflix Daredevil series that ran from 2015 to 2018. In terms of its ties to the MCU, Born Again is more standalone than a lot of projects in this franchise, but we’ve also been seeing Charlie Cox’s Matt Murdock popping up in various places over the latest few years. Showrunner and co-creator Dario Scardapane has now clarified how Born Again is handling MCU canon for its leading superhero, and that includes one moment that’s being avoided, which doesn’t surprise me.
With a little more than a month to go until Daredevil: Born Again’s release on the 2025 TV schedule to those who have a Disney+ subscription, Scardapane, who came aboard when the show was being creatively retooled, spoke with SFX about the learning curve he faced when he collaborated with Marvel Studios about figuring out how to his series fit within the larger MCU tapestry. In his words:
Marvel has a master plan, and what you're doing causes ripple effects. I would pitch stuff very early and I would hear that they had other plans. I have plenty of leeway up until I hit the larger-scale plan for the MCU. So I try to ignore some stuff [from the wider universe]. We establish a very specific Daredevil, both in terms of his dilemma, down to the suit and where we're picking him up in his life. You can say that Daredevil is canon in the MCU, those other events [in Spider-Man and She-Hulk] happened, but some of them we are not leaning into. His one-night stand with She-Hulk may be one of those things.
Look, do I understand why Daredevil: Born Again won’t mention Matt Murdock and Jennifer Walters, a.k.a. She-Hulk, getting romantically involved the latter’s TV show? Yes, given the massive tonal differences, with Born Again being a dark and gritty crime drama, and She-Hulk: Attorney at Law being a fourth wall-breaking legal comedy. Am I happy about it? No, because Jennifer does not deserve to be swept under the rug that is Matt’s love life!
At least Dario Scardapane acknowledges that Matt and Jennifer were once an item, it’s just that there won’t be any attention paid to it. So yeah, I’ll be fine with this decision in the long run, although it would be nice to see those two reunite someday. I can also understand why Matt’s cameo in Spider-Man: No Way Home won’t be addressed, although I’m still hoping that he and Tom Holland’s Peter Parker can team up someday. They fight crime in the same city, their paths have to cross at some point.
What we can count on is the MCU’s Matt Murdock once sharing screen time with plenty of people from the Netflix days in Daredevil: Born Again, including Vincent D’Onofrio’s Wilson Fisk/Kingpin (who’s been keeping busy on Hawkeye and Echo, the latter of which Charlie Cox also briefly appeared in), Elden Henson’s Foggy Nelson, Deborah Ann Woll’s Karen Page and Jon Bernthal’s Frank Castle/Punisher. Daredevil: Born Again premieres on March 4, with the first season consisting of nine episodes and a second season set to begin filming soon.
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