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.