In many ways, The Punisher: One Last Kill served as a farewell to Frank Castle's ruthlessly nihilistic ways, as the character ultimately decided to embrace a slightly more heroic path in the MCU.
Even so, we may not have seen the last of the Castle killing machine.
According to Daniel Richtman, Marvel is planning to move forward with a sequel to the recent Special Presentation, but the studio is " deciding whether to make it a series or a movie."
If Castle is going to be a regular player in the MCU going forward (Jon Bernthal is expected to return for Avengers: Secret Wars), it wouldn't make much sense for the big-screen projects he appears in to alternate between PG-13 and R, so we'd say a new Punisher series is more likely.
The scooper also says that the "Marvel detective project I mentioned is a Special, but it could lead to a full series if successful."
We assume he is referring to the same "True Detective-style procedural" that was first mentioned by Jeff Sneider last month.
Fans were hoping that One Last Kill would be more of a lead-in to Spider-Man: Brand New Day, but the ultra-violent special, which is currently streaming on Disney+, is a mostly standalone story that focuses on Castle's struggles with PTSD and inability to move on from the murder of his family.
Spoilers follow.
One Last Kill does leave Frank in a "better" place, however, as the antihero decides to operate as a vigilante with more of a focus on helping those targeted by criminals, as opposed to continuing his obsessive revenge mission (not that there are many people left to kill, anyway).
This is the version of the character we caught up with in Brand New Day, and director Reinaldo Marcus Green recently explained Castle's renewed sense of purpose during an interview with The Direct.
"I mean, I feel like we're coming in at the right time. I think, just as a fan of The Punisher and a fan of Jon [Bernthal], I want to see him more on screen. That trailer looks amazing. Daniel Deston Cretton is an incredible filmmaker. So just to know that I got Frank first, which is cool to get there before everybody else did, which, selfishly, is really great, and set him up... And we [now] know his psychological state before he goes into Spider-Man. I couldn't have asked for better timing for us.
So I think it's just, it's a lot of fun. I think people who are fans and people who are non-fans can still appreciate the special. You know, someone like my mother has never seen The Punisher, I think she can appreciate where Frank is in his headspace, and then maybe she'll become a fan and then go watch Spider Man. So I'm hoping that we, we can get some new audience members."