Apparently I'm one of the few who really liked Marvel's first stab at a Daredevil film, which starred Ben Affleck as the titular blind superhero. It wasn't perfect, but the darker tone was spot on, and Affleck captured Matt Murdock's dual personalities quite well. I kept waiting for a sequel, but instead all we got was the terrible Elektra spinoff with Jennifer Garner. So I was pretty excited when David Slade(Hard Candy) was brought in last year to take over a relaunch for 20th Century Fox. Last June we learned that Brad Michael Kane(Fringe) would be penning the script, but that appears to have fallen through because a new scribe has come aboard.
David James Kelly has taken over writing chores on the film, which as we previously learned will be based on the classic Born Again storyline. The classic 1986 storyline was written by Frank Miller with beautiful art by David Mazzucchelli, and I've often referred to it as Daredevil's The Empire Strikes Back moment. In it, Matt Murdock's old girlfriend, Karen Page, sells his superhero identity to the Kingpin, with the crime boss using his vast influence to ruin Murdock's life, driving the hero insane. Daredevil is a character who has sunk to unbelievable depths during his run, but nothing compared to what happens to him here.
Fox is in an interesting position here. As they hold the licenses to the X-men, Fantastic Four, and Daredevil, they have to keep these movies comin' in order to maintain the rights. So we'll always see relaunches and reboots in some fashion. It would be in Fox's best interests to maybe try and do what Marvel has done with their Avengers line, and maybe try to put together a shared cinematic universe? It's not as far fetched as you may think.
No release date is set for Daredevil just yet, as the next step will be finding someone to star. Robert Pattinson's name had been floated at one point, but that's probably not going to happen. [Deadline]
