Daredevil: Born Again is still on the upcoming Marvel TV shows slate, but Disney+ subscribers will have to wait longer for its arrival. Last week, it was reported that Born Again is making some major behind-the-scenes changes, namely that its head writers and directors have been let go due to Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige and other executives allegedly being unimpressed with what had been shot so far. Now Steven DeKnight, who served as the showrunner of Netflix’s Daredevil in its first season, has clarified his comments on Born Again’s shakeups, and his point is still valid.
On October 11, the day this Daredevil: Born Again update surfaced, DeKnight (whose other major credits include Spartacus, Jupiter’s Legacy and Pacific Rim: Uprising) responded to the news by saying, “The experiment, thankfully, appears to be over.” Days later, he clarified in X what he meant by this statement when someone commented on his post with the assumption that he was “happy” about “the show being scrapped”:
I am not happy the show is scrapped and have consistently stated the opposite. However I AM delighted that they finally realized you need an actual showrunner who's a writer to make a series work.
‘Scrapped’ isn’t necessarily the right term to use for Daredevil: Born Again if the claim that select scenes and sequences from the episode that have already been shot will be retained in whatever the final product ends up being, but ‘overhaul’ definitely fits for what’s ahead. More importantly, Steven DeKnight has cleared up that he’s not celebrating that the show in its original form has been set aside, but that someone who has both writing and showrunning experience will be selected to take over the series. It’s an excellent point; on a show of this scale, you need someone who has experience guiding this kind of small screen ship rather than trying it out for the first time.
Although DeKnight has previously said that he takes issue with Disney+’s Daredevil show going by a different title to, as he put it, “avoid paying the original creatives or triggering a raise for the crew,” he does “fully support” Born Again and enjoyed Charlie Cox’s “lighter take” on Matt Murdock in She-Hulk: Attorney at Law. He also doesn’t wish any ill will towards Matt Corman and Chris Ord, who will no longer be the head writers on Born Again, although they will still get executive producers credits. When someone claiming to be “good friends” with Corman and Ord thanked DeKnight for how “kind” he’s been about all this, he answered in a separate X post:
Absolutely! You can’t blame the people who were never given the authority to make the necessary creative decisions. Please tell your friends I feel their pain and wish them the absolute best!
So what exactly was wrong with Daredevil: Born Again in its original incarnation? While few specific details were revealed, supposedly the show felt more like a legal procedural drama than an action-packed superhero offering, and Matt Murdock didn’t even suit up as the Man Without Fear in the first three episodes. The behind-the-scenes turmoil on the recently-released Secret Invasion also reportedly factored into Kevin Feige and the MCU’s leadership team deciding to take Born Again in a different direction, and now the next step is to hire actual showrunners.
As far as onscreen talent goes, Charlie Cox is joined in the Daredevil: Born Again cast by Vincent D’Onofrio and Jon Bernthal respectively reprising Kingpin and The Punisher, as well as new faces like Michael Gandolfini and Sandrine Holt. The first season will consists of 18 episodes, and a second season is already being planned. You can check out our rundown of what we know about Daredevil: Born Again and then stay tuned to CinemaBlend for updates on new updates until the show's premiere.
