The hopes and dreams of fanboys that some day Marvel will be able to field their entire line-up of superheroes in one massive cinematic spectacle are probably never going to be realized, but the chances of Daredevil turning up on The Avengers just became a little greater. Back before Marvel smartened up, they licensed out the film rights to a large number of their characters. 20th Century Fox, who own the rights to Fantastic Four and the X-men, also had the blind superhero, Daredevil. After the Ben Affleck-led 2003 film failed to deliver, they've been trying to mount another one before the rights would lapse and revert back to Marvel. That obviously never happened, and now the character is back under the Marvel/Disney umbrella.
Marvel President Kevin Feige confirmed the news during a conversation with Newsarama, but nothing further was said on the matter. This comes after Fox really scrambled to put a new film together over the last year. David Slade (Hard Candy) had been attached to it for a long time, before ultimately dropping out a few months ago to helm NBC's Hannibal. Already under a time crunch, Fox reached out to Joe Carnahan (The Grey), who offered up a hard-boiled 1970s approach which was rejected. It was last summer we learned that Fox was willing to just let the character go when the October deadline hit, and that looks to have happened.
So what does this mean for the future of Daredevil? That's anybody's guess, but it's likely that Marvel will take their time and figure out the best way to bring him into the fold. Daredevil comes with a built-in fanbase and a tone that is more along the lines of film noir, which could go a long way in spicing up Phase Three. Right now we know that Edgar Wright's Ant-Man and a Dr. Strange film are part of the next wave.
