The announcement that “Daredevil: Born Again” will appear on Disney+ in the spring of 2024 may not have come as a surprise to everyone, but the surprising thing is that it may have the opposite problem, as in most MCU series. Amazingly, it turned out that the first season of the show gets an unprecedented run of 18 episodes, which is one of the most exciting announcements of the upcoming Phase 5 from Marvel Studios. Although viewers may be excited about the return of “Daredevil” Charlie Cox and Vincent D. “Thief in Law” Onofrio, the number of episodes could pose a serious problem for the future of the Marvel show on Disney+ over the next few years.
Four years after Netflix canceled its incredibly popular series “Daredevil,” in which Matt Murdoch last defeated Wilson Fisk after the latter married Vanessa, Kevin Feige announced the revival of the series at Comic-Con in San Diego, rather than a straight-up 4th season “Daredevils”, which was expected. Marvel Studios clearly has a significant plan for the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen, as he will appear in several episodes of “Hulk Woman: Juror Advocate” in August and “Echo” next summer. Little is known about Born Again, as it has just been announced. What is known is that Cox and D’Onofrio are returning, and that this will be part of the fifth phase of the MCU, released shortly before the Thunderbolts complete the events of this phase. One of the main questions that worries viewers is what tone the series will have.
Related: So, “Daredevil: Born Again” will just be Season 3… again?
During the fourth phase of the MCU, one of the main complaints about the Disney+ show is that the stories tend to seem rushed, especially when the finales are approaching. Characters like Carly Morgenthau from “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” are insufficiently worked out, and finales like “Vandavision” and “Hawkeye” focus more on action than on the overall story in order to quickly complete the events, sacrificing the character for the sake of action. Due to the fact that “Daredevil: Born Again” is getting its first season of 18 episodes, writers and creators Matt Corman and Chris Ord have a difficult task to complete as they try to create a series that lives up to expectations. While 18 episodes seems like more than an appropriate number, it could create the opposite problem, as in previous MCU Disney+ TV shows. That number of episodes could have caused the overarching narrative to drag on longer than necessary—a problem that arose when “Daredevil” and other shows in the “Defenders” universe were on Netflix.
How Marvel Can Keep the Series from Dragging On
Marvel Studios should be able to tell a compelling enough story to keep viewers interested. The audience was invested in Daredevil because of the incredible performance of Charlie Cox and Vincent D’Onofrio, as well as because of the well-written shocking storylines. If it is eventually confirmed that the original series is related to “Born Again,” then perhaps the return of Wilson Bethel’s “Bullseye” from “Daredevil” may be in development. If Wilson Fisk appears in both Echo and Born Again in the near future, then it will be necessary to decide how he got out of prison after Daredevil defeated him. Marvel may incorporate many of these storylines into the upcoming series, but it’s important that the overall story never loses its significance.
If Marvel also decides to change the tone of the series in the near future, it could potentially solve the problem. Recently, during the Marvel Studios animation panel at Comic-Con in San Diego, it was announced that the upcoming Marvel Zombies, which will also premiere in 2024, will have a TV-MA rating and will rely heavily on blood and violence. If Daredevil: Born Again takes a similar approach and keeps the same darker tone of Daredevil, it could make it one of the best Marvel series to date. The upcoming D23 event in September will probably tell more about the upcoming series.
