There have been rumblings of some kind of reboot or revival for The Punisher with Jon Bernthal back in the role for quite a while now, and we may have just received confirmation from an unlikely source.
In what appears to be the second MCU-related slip-up this week, The Mandalorian star Rosario Dawson said she heard "that The Punisher was happening again" when asked about a potential Night Nurse return during a panel at Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo earlier today.
"So, I feel like it's my second chance, because that's the only one of the shows I wasn't in and I love Jon Bernthal," she continued. "So, lets all make it happen collectively guys."
As she alludes to here, Dawson debuted as Claire Temple in the first season of Daredevil, and would go on make sporadic appearances in Luke Cage, Iron Fist, Jessica Jones, and The Defenders. It's always possible that Dawson got some bad information, of course, but she certainly sounded pretty confident that Frank Castle is set to make his Marvel Cinematic Universe debut at some point.
Both Charlie Cox and Vincent D'Onofrio recently made the jump in Spider-Man: No Way Home and Hawkeye, respectively, and Krysten Ritter is expected to follow-suit as Jessica Jones in either She-Hulk or Echo, so it does seem like quite a few of the Marvel Netflix actors are being given the opportunity to reprise their roles.
Bernthal has previously stated that he'd only be interested in playing Castle again if the project was true to the gritty, violent nature of the character, so if a new Punisher series or movie is in development, there's a pretty good chance it'll be R-rated.
We're not taking this as confirmation by any stretch, but we'll be keeping an eye out for an official announcement, possibly as soon as D23 next month.