Sighting of More Daredevil Vets on Born Again Set Suggest Disney+ Series Is Closer to Being an Actual ‘Season 4’
Disney+’s Daredevil: Born Again — starring Charlie Cox and Vincent D’Onofrio — is looking more and more like “Season 4” of the Netflix series, now that two more familiar faces have been spied on set.
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After pausing production for more than three months to undergo a creative overhaul, Daredevil: Born Again resumed filming on Jan. 22 in New York. In photos and video captured by passersby, both Deborah Ann Woll and Elden Henson, whose absence from Born Again‘s original cast list irked fans, clearly are reprising their Marvel’s Daredevil roles of Karen Page and Foggy Nelson (as first rumored by The Insneider newsletter).
As detailed below (see “Is Born Again the Same Continuity as Netflix’s Daredevil?”), the Disney+ series at first was framed as being not a straight-on “revival” of the three-season Netflix series — but the addition of Woll and Henson certainly suggests something closer to a “Season 4.”
Daredevil: Born Again‘s mid-production revamp saw Dario Scardapane (The Punisher) replace Matt Corman and Chris Ord as showrunner, with Loki co-directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead helming the remaining episodes, while Philip Silvera — stunt coordinator for Marvel’s Daredevil — reportedly returned to fill the same role on Born Again.
The creative overhaul reportedly came after Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige and other execs reviewed footage from the first few Born Again episodes and decided that the series as envisioned by Corman and Ord — a legal procedural light on action and violence, and in which Cox’s Matt Murdock didn’t don his Daredevil duds until Episode 4 — simply didn’t work. A search commenced for a new showrunner to “rethink the original intention of the show,” though some of the already-filmed scenes/episodes may be retained.
Given all the many changes reported since December 2023, TVLine presents everything we currently know about Daredevil: Born Again:
How Many Episodes Is Daredevil: Born Again?
When Daredevil: Born Again was first officially announced, title and all, at the July 2022 San Diego Comic-Con, it came with what was at the time an eye-popping 18-episode order — or, nearly half of the Netflix Daredevil series’ entire three-season run.
But with the creative overhaul reported in December came an adjusted output. Now, per THR, Daredevil: Born Again will not crank out 18 episodes but something “more in line with the original Netflix series model of lower episode counts,” which were typically 13 per season.
Who Has Been Cast in Daredevil: Born Again?
Man, at this point the easier question is almost, “Who hasn’t?”
Charlie Cox and Vincent D’Onofrio are of course reprising their Marvel’s Daredevil roles of Matt Murdock/Daredevil and Wilson Fisk/Kingpin — or at least some versions thereof. (More on that in a bit.)
Other cast confirmed (via a U.S. Copyright Office filing) for the original iteration, at least, of Daredevil: Born Again are Jon Bernthal (reprising his Netflix series role of Frank Castle aka Punisher), Sandrine Holt (House of Cards) as a “recast” Vanessa Fisk, Margarita Levieva (Revenge) as Heather Glenn, Michael Gandolfini (The Many Saints of Newark) as Daniel Blade, Nikki M James (Severance) as Kirsten McDuffie, Genneya Walton (Never Have I Ever) as BB Urich, Clark Johnson (Evil, Bosch) as Cherry, Arty Froushan (Carnival Row) as Buck Cashman and Zabryna Guevara (New Amsterdam) as Sheila Rivera.
But given the creative overhaul that came in the middle of filming, time will tell which of the actors/characters above will still play a meaningful role.
Plus, as noted at the top of this article, Deborah Ann Woll and Elden Henson — conspicuously absent from the original cast list, irking purists — are now on-set filming scenes as Karen and Foggy.
There’s also a unconfirmed report (per ComicBook.com) that Wilson Bethel is also returning, to some degree reprise his Marvel’s Daredevil role of Benjamin Poindexter aka the adversary Bullseye.
What Is the Storyline?
The original premise for Daredevil: Born Again, according to a September 2023 filing with the U.S. Copyright Office, said that “longtime rivals Matt Murdock and Wilson Fisk try to leave behind their darker alter-egos to serve the people of New York only to have their pasts catch up to them. In the first episode of the series we are reintroduced to the world of Daredevil.”
A mid-credits scene in the season finale of the Hawkeye spinoff Echo added a bit more to that, when Wilson Fisk tuned into the news and watched intently as two anchors discussed the current New York City mayoral race. The newsmen spoke on voters’ desire for a “bareknuckle brawler” and “outsider” who isn’t afraid to take on the establishment. As they mused on whether such a candidate existed, Fisk leaned in closer as if to say he’s the man for the job….
Is Born Again the Same Continuity/Characters as Netflix’s Daredevil Series?
Though the live-action Matt Murdock and Wilson Fisk vanished for a stretch after Marvel’s Daredevil wrapped its three-season Netflix run in October 2018, both have been busy in recent years.
Across one week in mid-December 2021, Cox reprised his role on the big screen in a Spider-Man: No Way Home scene (where Matt counseled Peter Parker), while D’Onofrio began a short arc on Disney+’s Hawkeye. Cox then popped up in a couple of October 2022 episodes of Disney+’s She–Hulk, and D’Onofrio most recently loomed large in the Hawkeye spinoff Echo.
But have they been playing the exact same characters as in Netflix’s Daredevil series…?
Cox noted to NME in December 2022 that, being a comedy, She-Hulk‘s version of Matt was “quick-witted and funny and charismatic and carefree” — less brooding than he was on Netflix. And in Daredevil: Born Again, “This has to be a reincarnation, it has to be different, otherwise why are we doing it?” Cox posited at the time, long before filming began (and even longer before the creative overhaul paused production for months, and a showrunner change). “My instinct is that on Disney+ it will be dark but it probably won’t be as gory.”
D’Onofrio meanwhile told TVLine that Hawkeye‘s version of Fisk was the same we saw in Daredevil — albiet with some tweaks. “Obviously, in [Hawkeye] he’s physically stronger and can take more physical abuse. But emotionally, and as far as the history that was discussed, it was done with an eye on connecting as many dots from Daredevil to Hawkeye as possible,” D’Onofrio said. “There are obviously things that we can’t connect … but as far as how I played him and the history that I carry myself from and into Hawkeye, he is the same guy.”
The conspicuous exclusion of Deborah Ann Woll and Elden Henson (and the recast of Fisk’s wife Vanessa) in Daredevil: Born Again very much supported the idea that this revival-of-sorts would in some ways be a non-canonical reboot-of-sorts. But now that Woll and Henson are both on-set, as Karen and Foggy, it would seem that Born Again is closer to “Season 4.”
Does Daredevil: Born Again Have a Release Date?
When Marvel Studios boss Kevin Frige first unveiled (the first crack at) the MCU Phase 5 plan, Daredevil: Born Again landed a then-exciting Spring 2024 premiere. (So soon-ish!)
But of course so, so much has changed since then, due to Disney at large reconsidering the firehose-like output of Marvel TV series and films, the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, and creative hiccups such as what Daredevil: Born Again faced. Remember, the aforementioned Phase 5 schedule had Echo earmarked for summer 2023, Ironheart (in which Dominique Thorne reprises her Riri Williams role from Wakanda Forever) should have already been out, and the premiere of Agatha: Whatever the WandaVision Offshoot’s Current Subtitle Is would have been imminent.)
Daredevil: Born Again‘s original Spring 2024 release date was scrapped back in September and has not yet been rescheduled – very understandably, in light of the creative overhaul that paused production for more than three months.
Want scoop on Daredevil: Born Again, or for any other Marvel TV show ? Email InsideLine@tvline.com, and your question may be answered via Matt’s Inside Line!
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