The R-rated ‘Daredevil’ movie Marvel almost made before the Netflix TV series

[#item_full_content] [[{“value”:”The Marvel TV series Daredevil, and its ongoing revival in Daredevil: Born Again, has made for some of the absolute best comic book television of the modern era. It’s a rich character and world to explore, and the creative team (and casting team) has done an incredible job of bringing it to life with reverence to the comics and its own, unique spin for live action.
But before the series originally moved forward at Netflix, Marvel was seriously considering a big screen reboot from Matt Murdock that could’ve been the MCU’s first R-rated movie. After all, the character had set dormant long enough for folks to forget that Ben Affleck movie. So, what happened?
The Daredevil show was part of Marvel’s larger package of shows in that blockbuster deal with Netflix that green-lit Daredevil, Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, Iron Fist (sigh) and a (lackluster, sadly) team-up miniseries called The Defenders. Arguably, Daredevil proved to have the most staying power and popularity, which is why Disney+ went back to the well and integrated that corner of the Marvel universe into the larger MCU via Born Again.
That R-rated Daredevil movie pitch
Just before that big Netflix deal came together, though, Marvel was fielding a pitch from writer/producer Drew Goddard (The Martian, Cabin in the Woods) for a live action reboot dthat would’ve left the sillier Ben Affleck take on the character from 2003 behind and crafted a darker, grittier vision of Matt Murdock that would’ve fit into a darker corner of the MCU.
Years back, Goddard chatted with IGN about his vision for that film version of the project, noting that after laying out his plan, both sides quickly realized the trajectory of the big screen side of the MCU just didn’t mesh with the smaller idea he was pitching.
“[W]hat we all sort of realized is that, this movie doesn’t want to cost $200 million. The thing about Matt Murdock is, he’s not saving the world. He’s just keeping his corner clean,” Goddard explained at the time. “So it would feel wrong to have spaceships crashing in the middle of the city. But because of that, Marvel on the movie side is not in the business of making $25 million movies. They’re going big, as they should.”
Doing a version of Daredevil that would fit the big action, PG-13 vibe of the MCU at the time didn’t interest either party in that moment, and Goddard didn’t want to do something that would be a “watered down version” of the story.
Put simply, as he noted: “[T]hey’re not doing R-rated movies.”
Of course, that would change years later with Deadpool & Wolverine (though that in itself, while R-rated, was still a massive, expensive action spectacle). But in that Phase I and Phase II Marvel slate era? Something like this was simply a non-starter.
What would that R-rated Daredevil movie have been about?
Thankfully for fans, we don’t have to look too hard to figure out what type of story Goddard was cooking up for his proposed Daredevil movie. Though his pitch wasn’t right for a film at the time, Marvel connected with his vision and passion for the character — which is why Goddard was eventually hired as showrunner for the first season of Netflix’s Daredevil series.
So the first season of the show, where we see Daredevil working to balance his work as a masked vigilante with his day job as an attorney in Hell’s Kitchen — all while trying to stop the Kingpin’s criminal conspiracies along the way? That was pretty much Goddard’s take. Though seeing it on the big screen would’ve been cool, the longer run time of a TV show helped give these characters and this world more room to breathe and grow.
“It felt that we’d have more freedom to make it on the small screen and make it more adult. Look, if we took the Netflix [show] and put it in theatres, it’s rated R,” Goddard told IGN. “And we also got to really explore the character. I feel like Netflix was the best possible home for that.”
Goddard departed the series as showrunner after Season 1 to work on some other (ill-fated) comic book film adaptations, including Sinister Six and X-Force movies that never made it out of development — but we all owe him some thanks for sticking with Daredevil and getting this version of the character off the ground at modern-day Marvel.”}]]  Read More