Television is radically changing. Once lurching forward with an excess of content, something we called the age of #TooMuchContent, ever since the Wall Street about-face on Netflix and streaming (spring 2022), TV studios have been in creative overhaul mode, and we’re still feeling those effects each day. Example: Marvel’s “Daredevil: Born Again” is undergoing a creative reboot and perhaps radical overhaul. Centering on Daredevil/lawyer Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox), “Daredevil: Born Again” shot half of what was supposed to be an 18-episode-long season—nearly three times as long as most Disney+ Marvel shows—but had to shut down because of the SAG and Writer’s strikes.
Now, following Marvel’s review of what has been shot— including input by Marvel exec Kevin Feige— the studios’ Parliamentary and powers have decided that the show wasn’t working, and it’s kind of going back to the drawing board. It sounds like major changes are in store, and there’s an extensive renovation coming.
THR reports that Marvel— following the aforementioned review of what had been shot so far— quietly dismissed its head writers, Chris Ord and Matt Corman, in September and also released the directors for the remainder of the season out of their contract as a sign of a significant creative reboot of the series to come.
According to the report, fewer than half of the 18 episodes had been shot, but it was still enough for Marvel to spot the problem of the series in its current iteration simply not working. Marvel is now on the hunt for new writers and directors, and it sounds like mostly a creative overhaul that will only borrow from some already-shot elements.
“Daredevil: Born Again” centers on blind attorney turned superhero Matt Murdock. The series was meant to be a multiverse-y mild reboot of the Netflix Daredevil series, continuing with Charlie Cox as Daredevil (who turned up in Marvel’s “She-Hulk: Attorney At Law” series), Vincent D’onofrio as the Kingpin (who turned up in Marvel’s “Hawkeye” series), but also discarding any elements they didn’t like (Deborah Ann Woll, Elden Henson and Rosario Dawson weren’t returning for example)
‘Born Again,’ in its original version, had rehired Jon Bernthal to reprise his role as The Punisher and also cast new actors like Sandrine Holt, Nikki M. James, Genneya Walton, Clark Johnson, Arty Froushan, and Zabryna Guevara.
Marvel TV had done things differently in the past, not hiring showrunners and not using show bibles, but it seems that has backfired and will change.
Here’s THR on Marvel’s non-traditional way of making TV:
“Through it all, the company eschewed the traditional TV-making model. It didn’t commission pilots but instead shot entire $150 million-plus seasons of TV on the fly. It didn’t hire showrunners but instead depended on film executives to run its series. And as Marvel does for its movies, it relied on postproduction and reshoots to fix what wasn’t working.”
Here’s how this rethink will change Marvel’s approach going forward.
“It also is revamping its development process. Showrunners will write pilots and show Bibles. The days of Marvel shooting an entire series, from ‘She-Hulk’ to ‘Secret Invasion,’ then looking at what’s working and what’s not, are done.”
THR says this now-nixed version of ‘Born Again’ was a legal procedural that “did not resemble the Netflix version, known for its action and violence [and] Cox didn’t even show up in costume until the fourth episode.”
The gist of the article: Marvel tried to make TV like the way Marvel makes movies, but the rigors and format of TV demand it stick to the process (and maybe this is why Marvel TV has been so hit and mostly miss). Fwiw, Variety describes it all as a “massive overhaul” as well.
“The whole ‘fix it in post’ attitude makes it feel like a director doesn’t matter sometimes,” says one person familiar with the process. More when it arrives, but essentially, don’t expect “Daredevil: Born Again” to arrive in 2024 as initially planned.
