Steven DeKnight won't serve as showrunner for the second season of Daredevil due to some other directing commitments, but he still had plenty of details to share earlier today about what we should expect when the series returns to the online streaming service next year. No doubt one of the show's biggest additions is Jon Bernthal as The Punisher, and DeKnight promises that we'll be seeing the definitive Marvel version of the vigilante. "The thing about The Punisher, and I think there are great things about each of those versions, but none of them was completely the Marvel version," he said, before diplomatically comparing this take to the three we've seen over the years on the big screen. "And none of those movies were under the Marvel Studios banner until they recently got The Punisher back. So this is really the first time that we’re seeing the Marvel Studios from the Iron Man days, when they can control their own product, actually do this character."
As expected, The Punisher's actions won't be depicted too graphically, so don't expect buckets of blood and exploding skulls like in Punisher: War Zone. "Doubtful, that was pretty violent," DeKnight said when asked to compare the violence in Daredevil to that movie. "The first season of Daredevil was violent but I always say it was more implied. It wasn’t nearly as violent as The Walking Dead, a show that I love. On that, if somebody were to crush somebody’s head in a car door, you would’ve seen the head crush on screen but we didn’t want to go quite that far. We wanted to keep it right around PG-16 and not go all the way to the R. I have no idea if they’re planning to push it that far next season but I would be surprised." What do you guys think about this take on the vigilante? As long as he still kills those he targets, it really isn't that big a deal if we don't see blood splattered all over the walls and people's brain matter on Frank's shoes, right?