While walking the red carpet for the premiere of The Accountant 2, Jon Bernthal was asked to comment on the status of his upcoming Punisher special presentation from Marvel Studios.
Bernthal took time out to thank the military community for their assistance in helping him define the character and revealed that he's consulting with various specialists to write the show.
Speaking to Who Let Us Out, Bernthal stated, "For the Marine Corps. and that community for helping me on this journey. Helping me write, helping me find this character- some of the best people that we have in this country have worn that Punisher skull on their body armor when they've taken that unbelievable walk into danger to stand up for our country."
"That's something that I take enormously seriously, and I make the show for them; I make it with them. I just really, really want to get it right."
Bernthal first appeared as Frank Castle aka Punisher in 2016's Daredevil season 2 at Netflix and has gone on to star in a standalone spin-off that lasted 2 seasons. Bernthal recently returned to Daredevil to appear in season one of Daredevil: Born Again, and his reported to have an expanded role in season 2.
The Punisher Special Presentation will be released in 2026 and is being developed by Reinaldo Marcus Green (We Own This City), who is co-writing with Bernthal.
In another recent interview discussing the upcoming Disney+ special Bernthal stated, "In discussing what this thing could be and this sort of version of Frank that I really felt that the audience was hungry for, that the military community was hungry for it, the first responder community, the comic book fans, they were really hungry for it. I presented that version to them, and they encouraged me."
"They encouraged me to keep coming to the table. As we were talking with different writers, the ideas that we were coming up with started to resonate, and I think they saw how much they resonated with me. I got a great group of vets that I work with. One in particular, my friend Nick, he's just been incredible. I hope that it goes alright. I don't like talking about these things because it's a little bit of bark before there's a bite, you know? I'm honored and I'm grateful. It's an incredible group of people that we're assembling."
The Marvel Studios Special Presentations format is generally a standalone television program that is not part of a regularly scheduled series. To date, there have been two Special Presentations- 2022's Werewolf by Night (53 minutes) and The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special (42 Minutes).