‘Daredevil: Born Again’ Set Photos Suggest Marvel To Rewrite The Kingpin’s Origins

In the latest seeming confirmation that the upcoming Disney Plus series will indeed be turning a blind eye to the events of The Man Without Fear’s fan-favorite Netflix series, a recent leak of photos from the set of Daredevil: Born Again appear to suggest that the Kingpin will be receiving a new and more ‘understandable’ back story.

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These behind-the-scene photos hinting at the Vincent D’Onofrio-portrayed villain’s updated origin were first shared with the public on March 20th, courtesy of Twitter user @jadames177t.

As per a series of twelve photos taken by the user during the series’ recent on-location filming in New York City, Daredevil: Born Again will at one point feature a temporal detour to the 1970s, replete with women wearing bell bottoms, young men wearing their white t-shirts tucked into their jeans, and classic cars lining the street (including era-appropriate steel delivery truck).

At the center of this flashback is Fisk himself (as portrayed by an as-of-yet-unidentified actor), who can be seen sporting a more mop-top haircut than he did during his Netflix flashbacks and apparently being harassed by a group of local neighborhood bullies.

As noted above, these set photos appear to indicate that Marvel will be taking a new, potentially ‘softer’ approach to Marvel’s most cutthroat criminal entrepreneur compared to his Netflix incarnation.

According to the eighth episode of the original Daredevil series’ first season, ‘Shadows in the Glass’, Fisk’s violent and angry nature was not borne from his mistreatment at the hands of other children, but rather the horrendous physical and psychological abuse inflicted upon him by his own father.

In fact, Fisk was previously only seen having been antagonized by one particular ‘bully’ during his early years, that being his neighbor and regular critic of his father’s politics Bernie Walker.

And even then, Fisk’s lasting trauma from his conflict with Bernie came not from his direct interactions with the bully, but rather his father’s violent response to learning about the entire situation.

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Of course, while this exact change to the history of Hell’s Kitchen may come as a surprise to audiences, Marvel’s willingness to disregard the original series’ canon should not, as franchise star Charlie Cox has regularly informed audiences that a ‘soft reboot’ of Horn Head’s lore was always the studio’s plan.

Speaking with extraTV during the 2022 D23 Expo in Anaheim, California, Cox explained that Born Again “is a Season 1. It is not Season 4, so it is a whole new thing. Which I think is the way to go. If you are going to do it again, do it differently.”

“I don’t know anything, I haven’t seen a script,” he added. “[But] my feeling is, based on the title ‘Born Again,’ I think that the sense is it is a new beginning, it is going to be different, it is going to be totally different. It is going to be new stories, and new ideas.”

Likewise, in a later interview with NME, the actor opined that Daredevil’s Disney Plus outing “has to be a reincarnation, it has to be different, otherwise why are we doing it?”

“My opinion is this character works best when he’s geared towards a slightly more mature audience,” he elaborated. “My instinct is that on Disney+ it will be dark but it probably won’t be as gory.”

Asked if he had any words of consolation for fans who would be disappointed by the series’ turn towards a lighter tone, Cox then asserted, “I would say to those people, we’ve done that. Let’s take the things that really worked, but can we broaden? Can we appeal to a slightly younger audience without losing what we’ve learned about what works?”

Daredevil: Born Again is currently on course to hit the streets sometime in Spring 2024.

NEXT: ‘Daredevil: Born Again’ Star Charlie Cox Says Series’ “Tone” Could Allow For The Man Without Fear To Cameo In ‘Deadpool 3’