When Daredevil premiered on Netflix in 2015, it did so to overwhelmingly positive reviews. Looking back now, the amount studios spend on streaming has changed massively, meaning it's easy enough to find fault with the series.
While there was plenty of costumed action, the show limited the Man Without Fear's powers, making what we saw from the hero in She-Hulk: Attorney at Law quite jarring (Marvel Studios dialled it back a little for Daredevil: Born Again but this Matt Murdock Variant swings through Hell's Kitchen and leaps from rooftop to rooftop).
Steven S. DeKnight was Daredevil season 1's showrunner and recently took to X to explain why Netflix's version of this character was a little more grounded and not able to accomplish the same feats as his MCU counterpart.
Unsurprisingly, it came down to money. DeKnight clearly hoped to do more with Daredevil's portrayal, but with one hand tied behind his back, it simply wasn't possible.
Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos recently reflected on the Marvel Television deal and didn't have many positives to share about his experiences with the previous regime; Marvel Entertainment Chairman Isaac Perlmutter held the pursestrings, and Jeph Loeb was tasked with overseeing the studio's output.
"By far, our Marvel deal [in 2013] was the biggest deal in the history of television. No one will ever touch it," he explained. "We committed to five original seasons of TV with no pilots, 13 expensive episodes for each show centered around one character. And then a crossover season. Ultimately, we learned a lot about the entertainment business on that deal."
"On our shows, we were dealing with the old Marvel television regime, which operated independently at Disney. And they were thrifty," he admitted. "And every time we wanted to make the shows bigger or better, we had to bang on them. Our incentives were not well aligned. We wanted to make great television; they wanted to make money. I thought we could make money with great television."
"You want to work with people whose incentives are aligned with yours. When people are producing for you, they’re trying to produce as cheaply as possible. My incentive is to make it as great as possible," Sarandos continued. "That’s a lesson that I take forever."
"As producers, whatever [Marvel] didn’t spend, they kept. So every time we wanted to add something to the show to make it better, it was a fistfight," he concluded.
10 years on, and Daredevil remains beloved among Marvel fans, so DeKnight doesn't need to beat himself up too much.
You can read the showrunner's comments in full below.
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