Skip to main content

Marvel believes Daredevil: Born Again will be as loved as X-Men ’97

Daredevil stands on top of a building and stares.
Netflix

Matt Murdock will have his hands full protecting the people of New York City in the upcoming Disney+ series Daredevil: Born Again.

Charlie Cox returns as Murdock/Daredevil, the role he originated for three seasons on Netflix’s Daredevil. While the spirit of the blind crimefighter will remain the same, Daredevil enters an entirely new universe full of new challenges in Born Again. Marvel Studios’ Head of Streaming, Television and Animation Brad Winderbaum compared Cox’s return as Daredevil to another revived show, X-Men ’97.

Recommended Videos

Daredevil is incredible. It’s similar in some ways to X-Men ’97, because it’s reviving something that the fans love, but it is taking it in a new direction,” Winderbaum said on The Official Marvel Podcast. “These characters have matured. The universe is different than it was. Things have changed. Society’s changed.”

Since returning to the MCU, Cox’s Daredevil has appeared in Spider-Man: No Way Home, She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, and Echo.

Besides Cox, actors reprising their Netflix roles for Born Again include Vincent D’Onofrio as Wilson Fisk/Kingpin, Jon Bernthal as Frank Castle/Punisher, Deborah Ann Woll as Karen Page, Elden Henson as Franklin “Foggy” Nelson, Wilson Bethel as Benjamin “Dex” Poindexter, and Ayelet Zurer as Vanessa Marianna-Fisk.

Marvel's Daredevil | Official Trailer [HD] | Netflix

With Kingpin, Winderbaum mentioned that the crime lord will go head-to-head with Daredevil, both physically and politically. “Matt and Wilson have changed, and their characters are gonna collide in ways we’ve never seen before,” Winderbaum explained. “It’s no longer enough to try and murder each other, there’s a whole game of politics at play.”

In October 2023, The Hollywood Reporter revealed that Marvel was hitting the reset button on Daredevil: Born Again. Despite filming less than half of the 18 episodes, Marvel executives decided to start from scratch on Born Again and implement a creative overhaul. Head writers Chris Ord and Matt Corman were let go. Ord and Corman reportedly crafted a legal procedural, a departure from the violent nature of the Netflix series.

Marvel hired Dario Scardapane, who worked on The Punisher, to be the new showrunner, and brought in the duo of Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead to direct multiple episodes. The series will once again channel the darker tone of the Netflix series.

Daredevil: Born Again will arrive on Disney+ in 2025.

Dan Girolamo
Dan is a passionate and multitalented content creator with experience in pop culture, entertainment, and sports. Throughout…
X-Men ’97 shows that Marvel and the MCU are moving in the right direction
The X-Men pose in "X-Men '97."

This spring, there have been three streaming series that have broken through the pop culture clutter and become "water cooler shows" -- shows that are discussed obsessively across social media platforms like X and TikTok and, yes, even the last remaining water coolers left in offices across the world. The first two -- Shōgun and Baby Reindeer -- were mild surprises; after all, how many historical epics set in feudal Japan and shows about male sexual trauma have topped the Nielsen viewing charts?

But the third popular water cooler show of spring 2024 is perhaps the most surprising: X-Men '97, a revival of a beloved 1990s animated series that had mixed-to-negative press before its premiere on March 20. What could the show be but yet another easy attempt to cash in on Gen-X nostalgia? The recently canceled reboot of Willow, plus the endless stream of increasingly mediocre live-action remakes of modern Disney animated classics like Aladdin and The Little Mermaid, set the bar pretty low, and with it, viewers' expectations.

Read more
7 best X-Men: The Animated Series episodes, ranked
The X-Men and Magneto look on as Professor X departs in X-Men: The Animated Series.

Earlier this month, Disney+ debuted X-Men '97, an official continuation of the fan-favorite cartoon X-Men: The Animated Series. After only two episodes, X-Men '97 has reminded viewers why they loved Marvel's mutant heroes in the first place. The original series was produced in 1992 for Fox Kids' Saturday morning lineup, and it was the first time that Marvel had a show that took its characters and stories seriously. X-Men: The Animated Series depicted a world where the heroes were hated and feared simply because they were born with superhuman abilities. That powerful allegory helped X-Men become a top-selling comic book series before it became a franchise in Hollywood.

Now that X-Men '97 has reignited the X-Men fandom, we're taking a look back at the seven best X-Men: The Animated Series episodes. Although for the purposes of this list, multipart episodes are being counted as a single story.
7. Days of Future Past

Read more
Is Marvel (finally) going to introduce the X-Men into the MCU in The Marvels?
Magneto stands next to the X-Men in X2.

It's only been about three years since the last X-Men movie but already fans miss those merry band of mutants. Sure, the movies weren't perfect, and some, like X-Men Origins: Wolverine and X-Men: Apocalypse, were outright bad, but they still had a certain charm, an irresistible nostalgic pull that most people couldn't resist. The Fox X-Men movies were the first true cinematic comic book universe, and they established a foundation that helped the MCU take over the world with 2008's Iron Man.

The Marvels | What Comes Next | In Theaters Nov 10

Read more