DAREDEVIL: BORN AGAIN Showrunner Fought Marvel to Bring Back Karen and Foggy and Was Willing to Lose His Job Over It
Daredevil: Born Again nearly didn’t include two of the most important characters in Daredevil franchise, but showrunner Dario Scardapane wasn’t about to ditch them.
When Scardapane joined the project, he made it clear that Matt Murdock’s closest friends and law partners, Foggy Nelson and Karen Page, had to be part of the show.
He told Empire: "That was actually one of the first things I said to the bosses. You can't do this show without Karen and Foggy. They're Matt's family. They're the heart of his world.
“You can't take them out without explaining why, and if that explanation doesn't ring true, don't take them out."
Originally, Born Again was planned as more of a reboot rather than a direct continuation of the Netflix series. The intent was to carve a fresh path for Charlie Cox’s blind vigilante, but in doing so, Marvel initially sidelined some major characters. Scardapane saw this as a mistake.
He explained: "It was much less the world we knew, and more trying to blaze a new trail, but in doing so, they'd forgotten some things that really were necessary to the engine of the story.”
During the writers’ strike, the show underwent a massive overhaul. The Punisher showrunner, along with directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, took over production and worked to bring back key elements from the Netflix series, including Elden Henson and Deborah Ann Woll’s characters.
For Scardapane, this wasn’t negotiable, he stood his ground, saying: "I was willing to lose a job over this one. Because season 3 of the Netflix show ended with a dream, with the names on that napkin. If you don't pay that off, you're not giving your characters context. You can't ignore that dream."
That dream, of course, was the future that Matt, Foggy, and Karen envisioned, which was building Nelson, Murdock and Page together. It was a defining moment at the end of Daredevil Season 3, and now, the MCU series will honor that legacy while propelling the characters into a new era.
I’m happy that Scardapane was smart enough to see this and that he managed to get Marvel on board. It’s wild to me that the Marvel execs weren’t smart enough to understand that these characters needed to be a part of the new show.
In Marvel Television's Daredevil: Born Again, “Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox), a blind lawyer with heightened abilities is fighting for justice through his bustling law firm, while former mob boss Wilson Fisk (Vincent D'Onofrio) pursues his own political endeavors in New York. When their past identities begin to emerge, both men find themselves on an inevitable collision course.”
The series also sees Elden Henson return as Froggy Nelson, Deborah Ann Woll as Karen Page, Jon Bernthal as Frank Castle/Punisher, Wilson Bethel as Benjamin “Dex” Poindexter, and Ayelet Zurer as Vanessa Marianna-Fisk.
The cast also includes Margarita Levieva, Michael Gandolfini, Genneya Walton, Arty Froushan, Jeremy Earl, and more.
Daredevil: Born Again is being developed by directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, who worked on both Moon Knight and Loki.
Daredevil: Born Again is set to arrive on Disney+ on March 4th, 2025.