Charlie Cox comments on the version of Daredevil he’s playing in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and if he might get to rekindle his romance with Jen Walters in new series…
When “Daredevil” got cancelled by Netflix in 2018, series star Charlie Cox was convinced he had played the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen for the last time.
Even as co-star Vincent D’Onofrio, who played the villainous Kingpin in the series, kept telling him that Marvel Studios would call one day to invite them back, Cox never believed it.
That is until it actually happened.
“After the show got canceled, Vincent D’Onofrio, who plays Kingpin, and I would talk occasionally and just catch up as friends, but he never gave up hope,” Cox told EW. “He was always like, “I’m sure they’re going to call us. I’m sure we’re going to do something. I bet you they’re going to do something again.” And I would listen to him and be like, “Sure … ”
“But secretly I’d be thinking he’s mad. There’s no way. Too much time has passed. It’s over. He’s delusional. He needs to let go. And lo and behold, I was the wrong one.”
Cox eventually received a call from Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige pitching him on the idea of returning as Daredevil for a couple of appearances, which led to a cameo role in “Spider-Man: No Way Home” and then a recent part in the penultimate episode of “She-Hulk: Attorney at Law.”
It was all unexpected but a joy for Cox to return to a role he thought he would never play again.
“I didn’t have a previous relationship with Kevin because when we were doing the show before, that was over at Marvel Television, not Marvel Studios, so although I’d met him on one occasion, I really didn’t know him at all,” Cox said.
“He called me up during the pandemic and said that they’d like to bring my character back and would I be interested in playing him. I didn’t take too long to think about that. And he said at the time that they wanted to put me in Spider-Man and in She-Hulk. But that was all they knew for now, that there would probably be something coming up after that, but they didn’t know what it was.”
Feige later announced at San Diego Comic Con in July that both Cox and D’Onofrio would be returning for a “Daredevil: Born Again” series on Disney+ that would run for a whopping 18 episodes. The series is currently expected to debut in Spring 2024.
While no further details have been revealed about the upcoming series, fans have continued to question if Cox is playing the same version of Daredevil now that he portrayed in the popular Netflix series for four seasons. Cox admits he can’t be certain because he doesn’t make those decisions but he has a hard time believing Marvel would bring him back without attempting to make a cohesive transition to place his version of Daredevil into the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe even if some of the traits surrounding the character have changed over the years.
“It should be and it is always the same character,” Cox said. “The difference is just like with people, we morph and change and are very different based on what’s going on in our lives. The Matt Murdock from the Netflix show, that world and what was going on for Matt meant that most of the time we were living with a man who had a huge amount of pressure and strain and tonally the show was very dark and gritty and heavy.
“I don’t know what the new show will be like, but when I came over to do Spider-Man and She-Hulk, the tone is much more lighthearted and tongue in cheek and fun and witty and full of levity, so the hope was that Matt is able to fit into that world and participate in it without it being a different character, a different person.”
As part of his appearance on “She-Hulk,” Cox also got the chance to play opposite series star Tatiana Maslany as their characters ended up getting together during the main episode where Daredevil first appeared. Cox then returned for the season finale during the closing moments of the episode where he sat down to a family dinner with Jen Walters’ family, which seemed to indicate a more serious relationship building between the two characters.
Cox doesn’t know if Marvel will build on that relationship or perhaps bring Maslany over to the new “Daredevil: Born Again” series but he definitely likes that idea.
“I have no idea. I hate to speculate, all I know is that it was really fun to do,” Cox said. “From what I’ve heard, the feedback has been very good and positive and people have really enjoyed it. I would be a huge supporter of She-Hulk making an appearance in our show, if that’s possible. I don’t know if it is, I should be clear about that.
“But who knows? Maybe it’s just a vacation fling or maybe there’s more substance to it and we can unpack it further in future iterations.”
For now, Cox is just starting to gear up to return as Daredevil for the new series that is expected to start filming in 2023 ahead of the 2024 debut date on Netflix.
“The thing that I’m most intrigued about and really interested in is to see how and why Marvel have chosen this character to appear in an 18-episode series,” Cox stated. “There has to be a reason why this character has been chosen. I think probably the fact that he’s a lawyer, which in and of itself lends so many story possibilities to us, is probably the main reason.
“But I’m just fascinated to see what we are able to do in terms of storytelling with that many episodes. It’s such a huge task. It’s such a huge undertaking, but I think if we get it right, to have that many episodes to tell a number of stories is really a really fun challenge and potentially incredibly gratifying.”
In the comics, the “Daredevil: Born Again” storyline centered around Matt Murdock’s ex-girlfriend Karen Page suffering through a brutal drug addiction after she attempts to become an actress and ends up working in the porn industry. Strung out and looking for a fix, Page sells a dealer Daredevil’s secret identity for a dose of heroin. The information eventually makes its way back to Wilson Fisk aka The Kingpin, who uses Daredevil’s true identity to torture Matt Murdock by ripping his life apart piece by piece.
There’s no telling how close the TV version of the story will compare to the comics or if “Daredevil: Born Again” will bring back any of the other actors who played many of those parts in the Netflix show. For now, we’ll all just have to await more details about the series once production starts in 2023.
