Original DAREDEVIL Showrunner Steven DeKnight Addresses Marvel's Big DAREDEVIL: BORN AGAIN Changes
It’s kind of crazy that Marvel Studios didn’t bring on the creative team behind Netflix’s Daredevil to develop the new series Daredevil: Born Again. Kevin Feige has said in regard to other projects, “If it’s not broke, don’t fix it,” and there was nothing really broken with the original Daredevil series, but they set out on a journey to do their own thing with Daredevil, and well… it ended up blowing up in their face.
Halfway through production, Marvel Studios ended up firing the show’s head writers and all of its directors. They are now looking to hire new talent to take the show in a new direction as “part of a significant creative reboot of the series.” Marvel executives and Feige reviewed footage from the series during the strike and after watching what had been shot, they realized that “The show wasn’t working.”
Marvel is also completely changing the way they are developing these TV shows. They are finally going to be using showrunners and executives who will be able to focus on these projects. Marvel's Brad Winderbaum explained, "We need executives that are dedicated to this medium, that are going to focus on streaming, focus on television, because they are two different forms."
This new process will see showrunners write pilots and show bibles, while the days of an entire series being shot - and then figuring out what did and didn't work in post-production with costly reshoots - are now over.
Now, original Daredevil showrunner Steven DeKnight has taken to social media to address these changes at Marvel saying he’s happy the finally realized they’ve been doing it all wrong.
“I am not happy the show is scrapped and have consistently stated the opposite. However I AM delighted that they finally realized you need an actual showrunner who's a writer to make a series work.”
DeKnight is not wrong in his assessment, and hopefully, these changes make a difference and up the storytelling quality of their series projects moving forward.