Late last year, we learned that Marvel Studios had decided to go back to the drawing board on Daredevil: Born Again by scrapping the initial premise, but (rumored) details on what the story was originally going to entail continued to filter through, and "The Trial of the White Tiger" was said to be the show's first major storyline prior to the overhaul.
According to the trades, Marvel execs reviewed some footage from the show while production was paused during the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes, and decided that a "significant creative reboot" was in order. Head writers Chris Ord and Matt Corman, along with directors for the remaining episodes, were let go, and Kevin Feige is said to have signed-off on a pretty major course-change.
Apparently, the first few episodes were going to focus on Matt Murdock taking on Hector Ayala as a client after he helps prevent a mugging, which turned out to be an attempted murder by corrupt cops who were trying to silence an informant before he could get to trial. One of the officers dies, leaving Hector to stand trial as a cop-killer.
We don't know if things will still play out exactly the same, but Daniel Richtman is reporting that White Tiger is set to appear, and there may also be plans in place for a spin-off featuring the character.
We're not sure how much stock to put in this, mostly because White Tiger's casting was never announced, although it's always possible Marvel simply kept it under wraps. There were rumors that Jenna Ortega was in the talks to play the Ava Ayala incarnation of White Tiger, but this would obviously contradict those reports - unless both version are set to feature.
Born Again will see the Man Without Fear (Charlie Cox) face-off against his old nemesis Wilson Fisk (Vincent D'Onofrio), with Jon Bernthal also set to return as Frank Castle. Initially, Elden Henson and Deborah Ann Woll were not going to be a part of the series, but after the revamp, it seems they will reprise their respective roles as Foggy Nelson and Karen Page after all.
The upcoming Disney+ series doesn't have an official release date yet, but D'Onofrio recently revealed that filming is set to resume "not long from now... in a few weeks, in fact." The actor also mentioned that the show will have a similar tone to the long-defunct Netflix Daredevil series.