DAREDEVIL: BORN AGAIN Star Vincent D'Onofrio Explains Kevin Feige's Role In The Show's Creative Overhaul

DAREDEVIL: BORN AGAIN Star Vincent D'Onofrio Explains Kevin Feige's Role In The Show's Creative Overhaul

Daredevil: Born Again star Vincent D'Onofrio has talked more about the show's creative overhaul, crediting Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige with addressing his and Charlie Cox's concerns. Check it out!

By JoshWilding - Apr 05, 2025 04:04 AM EST
Filed Under: Daredevil

2023's WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes delayed many movies and TV shows. However, those strikes also benefited some of them, with Daredevil: Born Again among the most noteworthy examples. 

Marvel Studios realised something about the series wasn't working, so they replaced Head Writers Matt Corman and Chris Ord with showrunner Dario Scardapane and shot a new pilot and final two episodes.

Tweaks were also made to the rest of the season, and, crucially for fans, Daredevil: Born Again is now a follow-up to Netflix's Daredevil rather than a completely fresh start. 

Talking to Josh Horowitz, Kingpin actor Vincent D'Onofrio credited Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige with listening to him and Charlie Cox and, subsequently, making the necessary changes. 

"Between Charlie and I, yes, it was a collective idea," he said of the overhaul. "You know, I have to say that the initial writers, they had a great idea. The idea was a good idea. Unfortunately, I don't think it would have had a chance, because we were disconnecting from the original show."

"Charlie and I couldn't understand how we were supposed to portray these characters that everybody loves within the environment that they were putting us in," D'Onofrio continued. "So we kept on bumping against that the whole time. Luckily enough, we have a boss named Kevin Feige."

"He listens to everything, and he watches everything, and you can talk to him like you can anybody on the crew. He's a very straight-up dude. He's got to be, I would say, as far as his position, completely unique."

"In forty years of acting, he's completely unique to me, in the context of the position that he's in. He listened very clearly, and he did the diligence to get to the bottom of it, and it ended up the way it ended up," the actor added. "We were actively communicating, Charlie and I, and we needed to talk to the initial writers constantly every day. We felt like their idea was amazing, but that we were gonna eventually fail if we didn't right the ship a bit."

While Corman and Ord did some good work on the series, the divisive "bottle" episode - the fifth chapter, "With Interest" - was the only one untouched by the new creative team. If that was indicative of what the series would have looked like as a whole, then yes, we can safely assume that Daredevil: Born Again was in trouble. 

Work is already underway on season 2 of the Marvel Television series, and that's where we'll get to see Scardapane's true vision for the Man Without Fear. 

You can watch the full interview with D'Onofrio in the player below. 

DAREDEVIL Star Vincent D'Onofrio Reveals Why He Can't Reprise Kingpin Role In SPIDER-MAN: BRAND NEW DAY
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DAREDEVIL Star Vincent D'Onofrio Reveals Why He Can't Reprise Kingpin Role In SPIDER-MAN: BRAND NEW DAY

DAREDEVIL: BORN AGAIN Character Poster Unmasks The Villainous Muse - SPOILERS
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MarvelousMarty
MarvelousMarty - 4/5/2025, 4:20 AM
I love this guy but I have found this series boring and quite non-eventful.
MakeAmericaGrea
MakeAmericaGrea - 4/5/2025, 10:01 AM
@MarvelousMarty -

Why would anyone love this guy?

He has made how bad decisions with the MCU now?

He bent the knee and allowed Norrin Radd to be taken out of the Fantastic Four movie.
MartianManHuntr
MartianManHuntr - 4/5/2025, 4:53 AM
Feige is part of the problem, not the solution. At this point multiple people have confirmed that they are just name tag for the movie, recently Nia de Costa did too.

Before they come onboard, full fight sequence would be mapped and director won't even shoot it because Marvel will use their own second unit for that. Similarly plot points, story and everything else is already decided by a committee. That's why Marvel goes for new and inexperienced writers and directors.I have stopped blaming them for any faults of the movie too.

Just go and read about age of Ultron and how feige kept adding unnecessary scenes and plot points.
ObserverIO
ObserverIO - 4/5/2025, 5:15 AM
@MartianManHuntr - It's been a mess recently. Mostly because they keep panicking and rewriting everything due to the fan response not being good.

I know Whedon struggled with the Marvel process during Age of Ultron and Edgar Wright (Edgar [frick]ing Wright no less) ended up leaving Ant Man, but for the most part the way they do things worked for the Infinity Saga.

But I think they have a lack of confidence now because they don't have their big dicked characters anymore, they have to try and sell us the lesser heroes, the replacement heroes and legacy heroes. They told us the end of the story and then they kept going and they wonder why most people stopped listening.

And it's this lack of confidence (due to poor fan engagement due to them having to eat the scraps of a lesser universe) that makes this method even more stifling for creators like Nia DaCosta and Sam Raimi. Because now nothing's good enough and every time the fans say they want it a different way (like with Daredevil: Born Again) they become reactionary.

It's one thing to see what fans are generally wanting and steer into that direction, but it's another thing to suddenly throw out the work that a director has done because you're suddenly scared it's the wrong thing to do. Like maybe do that here and there when it's a big thing (like Kang Dynasty/Doomsday) but to do it on nearly every project just shows how reactionary they are being and their lack of confidence in what they're doing.

If they take care of the big things then the little things will take care of themselves. I think if they do a hard reboot after Secret Wars and yet create a separate universe where the old timeline is softbooted for the various Disney+ shows like Daredevil and Champions (or whatever crap they have planned for us) then this will solve all future problems and the small things can take care of themselves.
If they softboot, then we're gonna have another Daredevil situation where they do one thing and then they change it to another thing and you have actors and writers and more importantly audiences not knowing what's canon anymore and complaining and then Marvel will be constantly rushing from pillar to post trying to change everything again and it will result in a lesser overall product like it has done recently.

Wow that was a rant! Sorry.
jumpingtheshark
jumpingtheshark - 4/5/2025, 5:21 AM
@MartianManHuntr - poop, butt, fart. Consider?
vectorsigma
vectorsigma - 4/5/2025, 5:51 AM
@ObserverIO - imo, the only way to fix these problems is either replace feige with a creative like Gunn, or have him stay for the business side like Safran and get a creative in laying out a reboot like the DCU

There is now a lot of baggage from the early phases that they are still holding on to in the hopes that people will be back to flock their movies again. Doomsday is an example if that.

Whatever script there is, evething will be reactionary as you have mentioned and if i might add, desperate. It will be reshot to death. Add the fact that they are still in negatiations with some other actors so thats another reason to make additional changes.

There is also a possibility that the movie will be successful because of endless fanservice, the general audience will surely enjoy that. That is why they market it desperately. A few years ago, castings are secret. Now it is part of the marketing and that is their only play. It looks really desperate and cheap. Something they learned from Reynolds.

MartianManHuntr
MartianManHuntr - 4/5/2025, 6:43 AM
@ObserverIO - I don't think Marvel will go for reboot after secret wars because they still keep introducing new characters.

I don't think they can wrap up these many individual stories in just 2 movies when they are bringing fox-men and what not. That will probably infuriate people who spent long hours watching TV shows where these characters are being introduced left, right and center.
MartianManHuntr
MartianManHuntr - 4/5/2025, 6:47 AM
@jumpingtheshark - User Comment Image
MakeAmericaGrea
MakeAmericaGrea - 4/5/2025, 10:06 AM
Kevin Feige is part of the liberal problem at Disney.

He, Bob Iger, Kathleen Kennedy, Mark Ruffalo, and many others must be fired so Disney can thrive.
ObserverIO
ObserverIO - 4/5/2025, 1:28 PM
@MartianManHuntr - That's why they need to create a 2nd universe that would be a softbooted version of the old MCU. But they should keep that confined to television, because that's no longer big league stuff, it's becoming very niche.

So the Champions and Cox's Daredevil etc, Sam as Cap, Bucky and the Thunderbolts etc, all of those guys will be part of the legacy-verse on Disney+.
Let Brad Winderbaum have that universe, while Feige and whoever forge a new Sacred Timeline in the movies with younger versions of classic characters like Tony Stark and Steve Rogers. Everybody wins.

It's just that the current Sacred Timeline doesn't make money anymore. So that can be their Disney+ draw instead and keep the old fans happy.

You can have your cake and eat it if you just bake two cakes (as Miles Morales says in Across the Spiderverse).
MartianManHuntr
MartianManHuntr - 4/5/2025, 3:15 PM
@ObserverIO - How about this, in FF they are unable to defeat galactus so Reed captures lady SS and try using her power. Things go bad, lady SS dies and all of them are thrown in current Marvel universe. Galactus creates proper SS, eats this earth so we eventually move to that alternate earth which has mutants and all other charcters.

Problem solved, soft reboot.

User Comment Image
ObserverIO
ObserverIO - 4/5/2025, 3:24 PM
@MartianManHuntr - I dig it.
breakUbatman
breakUbatman - 4/5/2025, 5:41 AM
You know whats funny is how many good characters Marvel has side lined. How did we get all these ancillary characters yet nothing with the Warriors Three & Sif or The Howling commandos. The casting of those characters was solid and they could have held their own in their own adventures.


TheVisionary25
TheVisionary25 - 4/5/2025, 7:45 AM
@breakUbatman - it’s funny because some would call the Howling Commandos or the Warriors Three & Sif ancillary characters…

I bet you if a show or something was announced of them , you would have people going “who asked for this”?.
MakeAmericaGrea
MakeAmericaGrea - 4/5/2025, 10:26 AM
@breakUbatman -

Hogun is White.
Gmoney84
Gmoney84 - 4/5/2025, 7:19 AM
I think a lot of folks are forgetting the old Netflix dynamic of dropping whole seasons at once vs weekly releases. It changes the way viewers perceive and enjoy the show.
MakeAmericaGrea
MakeAmericaGrea - 4/5/2025, 10:29 AM
@Gmoney84 -

I think a lot of folks are forgetting the old Hollywood dynamic of writing entertaining stories vs woke activism. It changes the way viewers perceive and enjoy the movies and shows.
dagenspear
dagenspear - 4/5/2025, 7:30 AM
I'd like to know why Feige wasn't doing his job more before that happened.
TheVisionary25
TheVisionary25 - 4/5/2025, 8:02 AM
Interesting…

Honestly going by what we apparently know of the pre & post overhaul material , it seems like Corman & Ord did do good work to an extent (I honestly liked episode 5 and I thought it was a bit stronger then the recent episode which while decent felt like the weakest one to me so far) but I do think disconnecting from the Netflix show would have been a mistake so im glad Marvel decided to go in the direction they did & spend more money and time to right the ship as much as they could in the first season.

It will be interesting to see how the final 2 episodes measure up because those & the first episode were newly created for the show during the overhaul while ep 2-7 were originally 1-6 and were mostly unchanged from their prior iterations.

Anyway i think with the production issues the show had , it’s a miracle it’s still as cohesive and solid imo as it is!!.
bobevanz
bobevanz - 4/5/2025, 8:43 AM
Dude took a backseat after Endgame and thought everyone wanted this lineup for phase 4. He couldn't be anymore [frick]ing wrong. At least DC is now working with the writers and directors to make the ARTISTS vision come to life, not a bunch of [frick]ing yes men in suits who just want another billion dollars. Feige is out of touch and out of time
MakeAmericaGrea
MakeAmericaGrea - 4/5/2025, 9:58 AM
Kevin Feige said making Kingpin step aside so his wife can become a girlboss will annoy conservatives, let's do that.

And then someone said but what about the story?

And Kevin Feige said screw the story!
Spike101
Spike101 - 4/5/2025, 10:08 AM
These two are brilliant and we can be grateful they did raise their concerns otherwise what would we have got?
Lokiwasright
Lokiwasright - 4/5/2025, 11:07 AM
He originally played Thor in adventures of babysitting
MyCoolYoung
MyCoolYoung - 4/5/2025, 11:09 AM
I didn’t watch the video but everything Vincent related I read it in his kingpin voice

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