Vincent D'Onofrio has made some intriguing comments that will undoubtedly pique the interest of fans and may even persuade Marvel Studios executives to reconsider future plans.
D'Onofrio told Comic Book that he intends to continue playing Wilson Fisk aka Kingpin as long as Marvel wants him around, but if he had his wish, he'd like Kingpin to move into animation. Specifically, D'Onofrio envisions a What If...? episode for Fisk, that's similar in tone to Joaquin Phoenix's Joker film.
"I would love to do, like a, What If...? kind of Fisk story," D'Onofrio told ComicBook.
"I would just like to explore him in a, outside of the usual teaming up of villain and superhero. I'd like to see a truly more realistic version, kind of like what they did with the Joker ... A more interior approach and you know, 10 times darker than anything we've done with him before. You know, exploring that would be really interesting."
If D'Onofrio wants an episode that's darker than anything that's come before, we're likely looking at a TV-MA episode considering everything that happened in the Netflix Daredevil series.
The interviewer suggested that Fisk receive a What If...? episode that explores a reality where it was Fisk who was bitten by the radioactive spider instead of Peter Parker.
D'Onofrio laughed and stated, "I think he would commission canisters," when asked what kind of web shooters would he have.
D'Onofrio's concept sounds wonderful, and we're curious if Marvel and Disney+ would ever consider adding one or two live-action episodes to each new season of What If...?
Kingpin was certainly a dark character in Netflix's Daredevil series (which is now canon in the MCU) and in Echo, so it's hard to imagine an animated depiction of the character that's 10x darker than anything that's come before.
A third season of What If...? is confirmed to be in the works, with Marvel already releasing a teaser of a forthcoming episode that ventures to a reality where the Red Guardian (David Harbour) successfully reformed the Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan).
If D'Onofrio gets his wish, he'll most likely have to wait until a fourth season, and it's unclear whether that will happen, as Disney CEO Bob Iger recently stated that the company would look to reduce Marvel and Lucasfilm content for Disney+ in order to make the streaming platform more profitable.
Next up for D'Onofrio will be a reprisal of his role as the Kingpin in the upcoming Disney+ series, Daredevil: Born Again. After some creative changes, the TV series will resume filming next week and reportedly sees Fisk running to become Mayor of NYC.