While Kevin Feige and Marvel execs reviewed footage during the strikes, the decision was made to go back to square one with the series.
Just days after it was discovered who Michael Gandolfini would be portraying in the new Marvel Studios revival of the Daredevil series, Daredevil: Born Again, there is a major issue that now plagues the show. After the Hell’s Kitchen hero made a surprising return to the Marvel universe in She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, it inevitably prepared fans for the continuing story of Matt Murdock. The series has been blanketed under the usual Marvel secrecy. It would pause its production due to the writers’ strike earlier this summer, and the series would have under half of its episodes completed. While the footage was under review during the hiatus, Kevin Feige and the studio had come to the conclusion that, so far, the show just isn’t working.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Feige and the Marvel executives were so displeased with what they saw that they quietly let go of the head writers, Chris Ord and Matt Corman, as well as relieving the directors of their duties so Feige and company could amass a major overhaul of creatives to start from square one with the Disney+ revival. Marvel Studios is now actively searching for new writers and directors to take over the continuation series from scratch. According to THR, although Daredevil had already enjoyed three successful seasons on Netflix, “Corman and Ord crafted a legal procedural that did not resemble the Netflix version, known for its action and violence. Cox didn’t even show up in costume until the fourth episode. Marvel, after greenlighting the concept, found itself needing to rethink the original intention of the show.”
Despite the grand retooling, the studio still intends to keep certain scenes and even some episodes, but there will be new serialized elements introduced into the narrative and will only keep Corman and Ord in the credits as executive producers on the series. Coming off of the heels of the divisive Secret Invasion, critical and audience reception have caused Marvel to shift its focus to making TV shows in a more traditional manner. Marvel’s head of streaming, television and animation, Brad Winderbaum, stated, “We’re trying to marry the Marvel culture with the traditional television culture. It comes down to, ‘How can we tell stories in television that honor what’s so great about the source material?’”
Originally published at https://www.joblo.com/daredevil-born-again-complete-retooling/
