DAREDEVIL: BORN AGAIN — Charlie Cox Reveals Show Was Originally Going To Use Variants Concept From LOKI

DAREDEVIL: BORN AGAIN — Charlie Cox Reveals Show Was Originally Going To Use Variants Concept From LOKI

Daredevil: Born Again star Charlie Cox has revealed the original version of the show intended to separate itself from Netflix's Daredevil by tacitly employing the concept of variants from the Loki series.

By DanielKlissmman - Jun 07, 2025 12:06 PM EST
Filed Under: Daredevil
Source: Deadline

Daredevil: Born Again had a tumoltuous development process. The series was meant to be a soft reboot of Netflix's Daredevil, utilizing certain elements from it (mainly its stars, Charlie Cox and Vincent D'Onofrio), while still technically being a new beginning for the Man Without Fear. However, deep into filming Season 1's first few episodes, the series was taken back to the drawing board.

New creatives were brought on board, and the show was retooled as Season 4 of Netflix's Daredevil. From that, Born Again was able to bring back beloved characters like Elden Henson's Foggy Nelson, Deborah Ann Woll's Karen Page and Jon Bernthal's Punisher. The move paid off, as the series received a warm critical reception. Still, despite its success, the mystery of what the project's original version could have been lingers. 

Now, Charlie Cox has provided a fascinating detail about the show's first iteration. The actor appared on Deadline's Crew Call podcast alongside Born Again showrunner Dario Scardapene to discuss the Disney+ series. During the conversation, the topic of the show's retooling came up, and Cox explained the original plan to have Foggy Nelson killed off-screen. While delving into the topic, the actor revealed Born Again was originally supposed to take advantage of the variants concept introduced in the Loki TV series (at the 9:40 mark): 

"One of the things the original team wanted to do was, they wanted to keep Vincent [D'onofrio] and I. They wanted to keep us. They didn't want to alienate an audience that hadn't watched the show. So, they wanted it to kind of be a reset. So there was a kind of a conversation about it being almost like a variant, you know, in the 'Loki' show, we talk about these variants. It was almost like a variant; and we never said that, but it was almost like a variant. So, it was another version of these characters existing in a world."

Cox then explained why the concept didn't work: "That's a valid choice, it's a fun idea. The problem became that, we found that, whenever I said something that was in contrast to what we had shot in the past, people thought I was lying. They didn't think it was a variant; they thought I was being disingenuous. It was a nice idea, it just didn't pan out."

Lastly, he further clarified why the original plan was to kill Foggy off-screen: "That's why we didn't see the Foggy death. It was because they were trying not to tie the old show with the new show, so that people [didn't feel like], 'Well, I don't know who this person is; I don't want to watch it.' So, if it was off-camera, the idea would be that you understood the emotion, and you didn't have to know the context." 

There's an important distinction to make here. The actor did not necessarily say the original series planned to address the existence of variants directly. Instead, it appears he meant the show was going to use the concept of variants as an explanation for audiences familiar with the previous Daredevil series. As in, Matt Murdock and Kingpin were going to be variants of their Netflix counterparts, hence justifying why they looked the same even though they were technically different versions of the characters we'd seen before.

Having said that, the idea of Daredevil: Born Again, as grounded as it is, making use of a concept introduced in a project as larger-than-life as Loki, is exciting. It's a glimpse into the unexpected ways in which a cinematic universe can play around with its lore among different projects. 

Ultimately, the decision to drop the idea and rework the show was the best one. For all of its perceived faults, Netflix's Marvel TV series were a promising endeavor. Having them be validated by being properly integrated into the Marvel Cinematic Universe is exciting, as it allows their extensive mythology to carry on, as opposed to being unceremoniously dropped into the Void to be devoured by Alioth. 

Daredevil: Born Again Season 2 is scheduled to be released on Disney+ in March 2026. 

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Vigor
Vigor - 6/7/2025, 12:34 PM
This is how I assumed the show to be since Netflix shows are not Canon 616 😉
TheVisionary25
TheVisionary25 - 6/7/2025, 12:41 PM
@Vigor - well they are now…

User Comment Image
Vigor
Vigor - 6/7/2025, 1:12 PM
@TheVisionary25 - after 6 or so years. Fine. You win lol
TheVisionary25
TheVisionary25 - 6/7/2025, 1:16 PM
@Vigor - User Comment Image
Vigor
Vigor - 6/7/2025, 1:23 PM
@TheVisionary25 - I guess ill unblock heavymetal now. He cursed me out after we disagreed on of the shows were Canon or not, like 5 years ago lol

Its so funny the things we cared to argue about back then. Little did we know, those were the best times on this site
WhatIfRickJames
WhatIfRickJames - 6/7/2025, 1:15 PM
Thank god they didn’t. Keep it grounded please and thank you
Nightwing1015
Nightwing1015 - 6/7/2025, 1:20 PM
@WhatIfRickJames - from Charlie’s comments, I don’t think they ever would’ve actually discussed this in the show and altered the grounded tone
BlackStar25
BlackStar25 - 6/7/2025, 1:25 PM
Well...Their lack of acknowledgement of the Netflix series and the capitalization on Matt Murdock/Wilson Fisk were pretty big give aways. Hell...Take it a bit further...There are characters that showed up in the "Netflix" verse that also appeared in MCU as completely different characters.
asherman93
asherman93 - 6/7/2025, 1:31 PM
I find it baffling that Marvel and Feige started off making the right calls by bringing back Cox and D'Onofrio, giving the show's first season more episodes than any of the Netflix or Disney+ seasons... All with the intent of undermining that goodwill by making the Netflix seasons (and other shows) non-canon.

Who the [frick] thought that was a good idea?!?
CLTMAN29
CLTMAN29 - 6/7/2025, 1:34 PM
And this is why She- Hulk Matt was lighter and more powered, and Hawkeye WIlson could rip a car door off. It’s exactly what was assumed when they were introduced, and now it retconned (Re-conned?) it just makes those appearances wildly off-kilter
Killuminatic
Killuminatic - 6/7/2025, 1:34 PM
They should keep the variant angle solely for the Iron Fist aspect. Forget his series ever happened, decanonise it but keep some characters. Also forget the defenders happened. Do or at least allude to a much better origin story for Iron Fist, and keep some elements of a team up from happening so there’s at least history of the Defenders.

For Luke Cage, keep mostly everything the same, but change his childhood and background to make it closely akin to the comics.
TheVisionary25
TheVisionary25 - 6/7/2025, 1:43 PM
I had a feeling that was going be the case since they had been vague about Matt’s life prior to BA with his appereances in NWH & She Hulk aswell as Kingpin’s in Hawkeye though it wasn’t till Echo we got atleast the hammer backstory of the Netflix show which still could have been a similar event that had happened in the MCU as it did in the then Netflixverse…

However after the overhaul and the decision being made to make BA more of a direct continuation of the Netflix show then those ties in became more apparent as being in the same continuity which I appreciated and was the right move imo.

The original idea seemed like Marvel wanting to have its cake and eat it too but by having Vincent & Charlie back , there was no doubt going to be confusion about the continuity once they started to contradict it so that was not going to work unless they completely had divorced themselves from the old show and cast anew.

Anyway , I think it worked out for the best especially in regards to Foggy’s death because by seeing it on screen and it being Elden , it affects you more since you have a connection to the actor & character.
ObserverIO
ObserverIO - 6/7/2025, 1:52 PM
"They didn't want to alienate an audience"

Then they randomly have White Tiger with no origin and a throwaway line about a magical amulet.
If I'm a casual I think I've missed the White Tiger movie or series and I immediately feel alienated.
SteviesRightFoo
SteviesRightFoo - 6/7/2025, 3:12 PM
Why does feige and Co hate Daredevil man
ShimmyShimmyYA
ShimmyShimmyYA - 6/7/2025, 3:14 PM
So because the audience couldn’t get over themselves nice

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