Without a doubt, there is a massive fanbase for The Punisher simply as a character. When you define that character as Jon Bernthal's Punisher from the Netflix series, the fan base grows even bigger. Jon Bernthal is now just as associated with the character as Hugh Jackman is to Wolverine and Robert Downey Jr. is to Iron Man.
Recently, it was confirmed that The Punisher is getting his own Special Presentation on Disney+. We have a few details on it like Bernthal co-writing and who will actually direct the series, as well as a few words from the director that you can read about here, but it's still fairly limited.
If you don’t know what a Marvel Special Presentation is, it’s essentially a single episode of TV. Werewolf by Night and Guardians of the Galaxy Christmas Special are the only other two Marvel Special Presentations that currently exist. They’re both under an hour long and neither are set to have any continuation at the moment. So, if there is such an enormous fanbase for The Punisher, why isn’t he getting his own series or movie?
A movie about The Punisher could be a bit risky for Marvel Studios. The Punisher is a gun toting, ultra violent character (not that there aren’t a plethora of other characters that fit that description in comics) that also is sometimes used politically. This has been less of the case recently, but only a few years ago was seen on police uniforms during the 2020 George Floyd protests and riots and also on civilians. It’s also been used by members of the military, white nationalists at rallies, and even by ISIS sympathizers. Again, it’s been a while since this has been in the news cycle, and, of course, there are many, many more people that don’t politicize The Punisher logo at all, but Disney may just be testing the waters for political backlash from any side of the spectrum.
The amount of violence The Punisher would bring to the big screen obviously isn’t a foreign concept, but they are almost always less profitable than PG-13 films. Of course, Deadpool and Wolverine did just become the highest grossing R rated film of all time, and that movie was very violent, but it did feature some other attractive factors like the return of Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine and many cameos. Ultimately, Disney may just want The Punisher to be a series if it can prove itself.
Disney may simply not have as much faith in The Punisher as they do Daredevil and may be checking to see how much viewership Bernthal’s Punisher can bring in even if only for a single episode. Afterall, Netflix’s Daredevil received much better reviews than The Punisher, so Feige and the powers that be may just be practicing extreme caution.
Another possibility is that the plan is already in motion to give The Punisher the full Disney+ series treatment he deserves, and this is simply something to segue into that series. It’s almost certain that Daredevil: Born Again will be renewed for a second season, and there’s a good chance The Punisher will show up in Matt Murdock’s second season. Maybe they plan to film the Special Presentation at the same time as the second season of Born Again and release it as part of the same story. This would be something similar to the comics when two characters’ main stories interact with each other. A good example of this would be The Button storyline that crossed over between both Batman and Flash comics in their main run. A similar logic could be taken with Special Presentations on a more regular basis even as asking viewers to watch one episode of something else to continue a story in another show isn’t such a big ask and could end up being something pretty cool for comic fans.
Regardless, it is clear that Marvel fans want Jon Bernthal’s Punisher in the MCU more. We’ll take whatever we can get from him.
The Punisher will be making his MCU debut in Daredevil: Born Again which releases on March 4. We don’t know what episode he’ll be in yet or how many episodes, but you can check out the Born Again trailers to see his return.
What do you think Marvel’s plan for The Punisher is? Let me know in the comments!