We first heard that Marvel Studios/Sony Pictures might be planning to introduce the Punisher to the mix in the then untitled Spider-Man 4 earlier this year. With so many rumors relating to the project doing the rounds at the time, nobody really believed that we'd see the ultra-violent vigilante in the same movie as Tom Holland's Friendly Neighbourhood wall-crawler, but THR confirmed the news on Friday night.
Daredevil: Born Again actor Jon Bernthal is set to make his big-screen debut as Frank Castle in Spider-Man: Brand New Day. It's believed that Castle have a major role, and might well end up joining forces with Spidey to do battle with a rampaging Savage Hulk (Mark Ruffalo).
The news was obviously met with a lot of excitement, but there are also some concerns that Castle will need to be watered down to a significant degree in order to function in the movie's PG-13 setting. Even putting the less visceral on-screen depictions of violence aside, at his core, Frank is a dark, disturbed and disturbing individual, and it's difficult to imagine him fitting in to the relatively wholesome and family-friendly world of the Spider-Man franchise - at least not without stripping away a lot of the things that make this character who he is.
While chatting to THR in a 2021 interview, Bernthal gave an in-depth response when asked about the possibility of reprising the role in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
"That character, in particular, has real, real, real deep, deep meaning for me and resonance in me," he began. "He’s really in my heart, man. He’s really in my bones. I’m enormously protective of that character. I’ve said before that there’s nothing in this world more important to me than my wife and my kids, and only until you understand that kind of love and what it really means to willingly die for somebody, [do you understand] what it would be like if somebody took them from you. That’s a road and a darkness and a rage that really, really scares me and brings me to places that I’ve worked the last 20 years to get away from. So I was really grateful, respectful and weary of the places where that role took me and the world in which I had to live in."
"That being said, that’s where that character needs to be. It needs to be a level of darkness," he continued. "I think if there’s any let up on that character, you do a disservice to the character, to every iteration of the character, to every comic book that’s come before, and to all of the unbelievable fans of the character. This character means so much to people in the military. So like I said before, it’s not about whether you do the character; it’s about whether you can do it right, and I’m only interested in doing it right."
Bernthal was clearly given the go-ahead to make Castle every bit as unhinged and brutal as we've ever seen him in Born Again, but there is zero chance he'll have the same freedom in Brand New Day. Still, the fact that he agreed to sign on for the movie does suggest that he was happy with what the studio has planned for the character.
It's also worth noting that we have seen less brutal/ruthless takes in Castle in the comics over the years, though how well those stories were received by fans is up for debate.
At the end of the day, as long as a character like the Hulk - who can absorb a huge amount of punishment without showing the results of the violence - remains Castle's primary target, he can still let loose to some degree... just with less blood and fewer F-bombs!
What do you think? Can a character like the Punisher still work in a PG-13 settong? Drop us a comment down below.