Marvel's DAREDEVIL Will Be a "Grounded, Gritty" Series
Marvel Studios is planning on revealing lots of new details about their upcoming Daredevil series at New York Comic Con next month, but showrunner Stephen S. DeKnight already shared a few things about it with Paste Magazine. In a recentinterview he offers a little tease of their vision for the man without fear.
"With this version of Daredevil we wanted it to be grounded, gritty, as realistic as we could portray. That naturally fits in with the Daredevil character. Matt Murdock, on a regular basis, would get the shit beat out of him. That's one thing that makes him a great character. He's not super strong. He's not invulnerable. In every aspect, he's a man that's just pushed himself to the limits, he just has senses that are better than a normal humans. He is human. The other thing that really drew me to this character is that he's one of the most morally grey of the heroes... He's a lawyer by day, and he's taken this oath. But every night he breaks that oath, and goes out and does very violent things."
DeKnight goes on to hint that Frank Miller's run on the character was a big inspiration for them when they were developing the series.
"The image that always stuck in my mind was the Frank Miller Elektra run where he's holding Bullseye over the street, and he lets Bullseye go because he doesn't want Bullseye to ever kill anyone again. When I read that originally, when I was young, I'd never seen anything like that in comics. Superman scoops up the villain and puts them in jail. This time the hero didn’t do that. It was a morally grey ground that I found absolutely fascinating. There are two sides to this character. He's literally one bad day away from becoming the The Punisher!"
I seriously love that explanation. You can tell that DeKnight really knows this character, and it sounds like he's the right guy to bring the hero to life.
Daredevil will be the first of four Marvel original series being released on Netflix. Drew Goddard (The Cabin in the Woods, Buffy The Vampire Slayer) wrote the first two episodes and was supposed to direct the pilot, but he had to step away to work on Sony Picture's Sinister Six movie.
Hopefully we will get to see some footage from the series soon. I'm sure they'll screen something at NYCC.