THE PUNISHER: ONE LAST KILL Director Wants Frank Castle’s Next Mission to Hit the Big Screen
Fans are about to get another brutal chapter in Frank Castle’s MCU story with The Punisher: One Last Kill arriving on Disney+ this week, but the people making it already have their eyes on something much bigger.
Director Reinaldo Marcus Green says he and star Jon Bernthal aren’t looking at this as the end of the road for Marvel’s deadly vigilante. They want a full-on Punisher movie.
Speaking with The Direct, Green explained that the goal with One Last Kill was to remind audiences why Bernthal’s version of Frank Castle connects so well with fans in the first place and hopefully spark enough excitement to push Marvel toward giving the character a theatrical feature.
“I don't know what the plans are for the future of the Punisher. The only thing that we hope that we were able to accomplish is the demand for more.
“Hopefully, Jon [Bernthal] and Marvel will come together to make something worthy of what the audience would want to see out of that character.
“Moving forward, I know Jon and I would love to make a movie, something that could go worldwide and be on screens everywhere. But, obviously, that’ll be Marvel’s decision.”
Bernthal’s Frank Castle has remained one of Marvel’s most popular street-level characters, and Marvel Studios seems far more comfortable leaning into those darker corners of the MCU lately.
Then, Bernthal’s Punisher is also heading to the big screen this summer in Spider-Man: Brand New Day alongside Tom Holland’s Peter Parker. The film takes place after the events of Spider-Man: No Way Home, with Peter still dealing with the fallout of Doctor Strange’s memory spell wiping him from everyone’s lives.
That pairing alone feels like a wild comic book crossover fans have wanted for years. A street-level Spider-Man story with Frank Castle lurking somewhere in the chaos has the potential to be something seriously cool.
Green is clearly excited to see where Bernthal takes the character next, especially after helping shape Frank’s current mental state in One Last Kill before the character enters Marvel’s next Spider-Man movie.
“Just as a fan of the Punisher and a fan of Jon, I want to see him more on screen. That trailer looks amazing,” Green added of the upcoming Spidey fourquel.
“Destin [Daniel] Cretton’s an incredible filmmaker. [It's] cool to get there before everybody else did, which, selfishly, is really great [to be able to] set him up, and we know his psychological state before he goes into Spider-Man… I couldn't have asked for better timing for us.”
Marvel hasn’t announced any plans for a standalone Punisher movie yet, but if The Punisher: One Last Kill lands with audiences and Bernthal steals scenes in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, it’ll probably get a lot harder for the studio to ignore the demand.