Spoiler warning for anyone who hasn't yet finished watching the entirety of The Defenders on Netflix.
The final 15 minutes or so of The Defenders' finale were pretty tumultuous for the character ensemble, as the team-up series played things like Matt "Daredevil" Murdock was dead and presumably buried beneath the Midland Circle rubble. And just when it seemed like viewers might also be forced to believe in Matt's doomed fate, the show traveled to a brand new and unexpected location: a nunnery. And after the name "Margaret" was spoken, comic fans immediately jumped on the idea that Daredevil Season 3 might head to a fan-favorite arc. Here's what star Charlie Cox says about it.
For sure. That's such an amazing story. Everyone who loves Daredevil loves Born Again. You can't not. And if that's the case, then the implications of that would be very exciting to me. That would be great. Having said that, I know we don't tend to follow any story blueprints too closely, because if you do, then you become a foregone conclusion. There may be elements from Born Again, but I'm sure there will be elements that are unfamiliar and surprising and different in order for the show to be compelling to fans who know the comics very well. If we start making Born Again page-for-page, then the people who have read it and loved it -- the hardcore fans -- they won't have too much drama.
Something pretty obvious to take away from this is that Charlie Cox almost definitely hasn't seen any of the Daredevil Season 3 scripts yet, and also quite possibly hasn't had any big concrete conversations with producers. Otherwise, it's doubtful he would have been quite so free-flowing with his words to THR. Even though he didn't actually confirm or deny anything, we all know how Marvel gets about actors gabbing on about the future of any of its projects. Had Cox just recently peered at a detailed logline for Season 3 involving the Born Again narrative, he'd have likely been more cagey in his response.
That certainly doesn't have to be the case, of course, and Charlie Cox may well know some key info about how Daredevil Season 3 is handling the potential introduction of Matt's mother and their complicated relationship together. In fact, it would actually be a pretty deft tactic to talk about Born Again beneath a speculative umbrella with a true motive of tamping fan expectations for how far into Margaret Murdock's story the Netflix series will go. Even though comic fans almost necessarily know that TV adaptations can't and won't completely copy arcs beat-for-beat, it still sometimes has to be stated directly to get the point across. (That said, The Flash's cast and crew weren't able to perfectly revert viewer's comic expectations going into the "Flashpoint" premiere, so maybe it wouldn't even be a good strategy.
For those who aren't even familiar with Born Again, we won't get too bogged down with the details here, since Charlie Cox is correct in saying the show will likely only pull the details that complement the show's arc. Written by Frank Miller back in 1986, the lauded storyline involves Kingpin doing his damnedest to completely strip Matt Murdock down to his emotionally vulnerable core, with some physical pummeling thrown in for good measure. Broken, Matt ends up within the nunnery where his mother Margaret is settled, and suffice to say, their relationship doesn't mirror that of any 1970s sitcom families.
Without knowing anything about where Season 3 is going, much less if Vincent D'onofrio's Wilson Fisk could return, it's hard to gauge how heavily Born Again could factor into the future. But considering she's been referenced in the past, as well as the fact that Matt's relationship with his father has been such a core element of the character, we're hoping it plays out heavily throughout the season.
Daredevil Season 3 is supposedly set to go into production later this year around October, so we likely won't be hearing about a release date until the middle of 2018. Before that, though, you can re-stream all of The Defenders while checking out our lists of the biggest WTF moments and the best fights. To see everything else hitting the streaming giant, jump to our 2017 Netflix schedule, and then hit up our summer premiere guide and our fall TV schedule to see what else is hitting the small screen soon.
