Daredevil: Born Again underwent a creative overhaul midway through production, resulting in sweeping changes to both the story and creative team.
We believe original plans called for Foggy Nelson to die, prompting Matt Murdock to give up being the Man Without Fear (resulting in the lawyer not suiting up for at least four or five episodes of the nine-episode series). In place of a random gunman, we now have Bullseye and set photos have confirmed Karen Page has also been added to the scene.
Some footage from the original shoot will remain and it appears Foggy is still set to take a bullet. However, according to a new rumour shared on r/MarvelStudiosSpoilers, there's going to be a unique twist.
While we're not putting too much stock in this, it's said that Matt is forced to work for Wilson Fisk's Mayoral campaign after turning to the Kingpin to help keep Foggy alive. How? With the same technology he used to heal from a bullet to the head and regrow his eye (as seen in Echo).
If this is accurate, then it creates a fascinating dynamic for the show's leads and leaves Foggy alive to play a much bigger role in the already-confirmed second season of Daredevil: Born Again which begins production this November.
Here's what Charlie Cox previously said about the creative overhaul:
"I'm actually not going to answer that just because it's more complicated. I've read online how that information has been received, and the truth of the matter is it was a lot more complicated than that. A lot of the material that we shot pre-strike is brilliant and is still in the show and works really well. There were just some complicated factors around what we had been tasked to do and what we were discovering was and wasn't working."
"I would hate to answer that and then make it sound like what people were doing before the changes were made was not good or wrong. It is just more complicated than that. I think what I'll say is credit to Marvel that they looked at the episodes and could acknowledge that we could still do better, and that we maybe needed to go in a slightly different direction."
"That's just how it is; we are so lucky to be working for a company that is willing to do that and spend more money to get there. But where we ended up felt really good."
The Daredevil revival stars Charlie Cox, Vincent D'Onofrio, Jon Bernthal, Margarita Levieva, Michael Gandolfini, Genneya Walton, Arty Froushan, Deborah Ann Woll, Elden Henson, Wilson Bethel, Jeremy Earl, and Ayelet Zurer.
Dario Scardapane (The Punisher) serves as showrunner in place of original head writers Matt Corman and Chris Ord. We think Michael Cuesta, Jeffrey Nachmanoff, and David Boyd will still be credited for the episodes they helmed but Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead took over directing duties following the overhaul.
It's been confirmed that Daredevil: Born Again will premiere on Disney+ next March.