‘Daredevil: Born Again’ Showrunner Says Disney Plus Outing Will Feature “A Lot Less Navel-Gazing” Than Netflix Series: “The Earlier Show, At Its Best, Was Fantastic. At Its Worst, It Was Two Characters In A Room Talking About What A Hero Is.”
According to Daredevil: Born Again showrunner Dario Scardapane, The Man Without Fear’s upcoming Disney Plus reboot will err away from focusing on “navel-gazing” moments of character introspection, as he believes these were the “worst” parts of the original Netflix series.
Scardapane, whose previous TV credits include serving as a writer and producer on both Netflix’s The Punisher and Amazon’s Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan series, provided this tease as to Daredevil: Born Again‘s creative direction while speaking to SFX Magazine for their upcoming January 2025 issue.
Per a recap provided by the magazine’s sister publication GamesRadar, having broached the topic of just how the Disney Plus series will deviate from its predecessor, the showrunner explained, “There is more fun in the moments with these characters and a lot less navel-gazing than before.”
“The earlier show, at its best, was fantastic,” said Scardapane. “At its worst, it was two characters in a room talking about what a hero is. I felt that had been done. I’m not taking swipes. I just didn’t want to hear characters grousing about their lot in life. I wanted to see them doing things.”
Another difference between the two, said the showrunner, was their pacing, with Born Again set to have ‘shorter’ intervals between scenes.
“[On The Punisher] one of our edicts was longer scenes,” Scardapone recalled. “You had these long five-page scenes of characters hashing it out in order to make space between these massive action sequences. The way stuff has evolved since then, we’re able to do big action sequences at a lot more pace.”
Moving to give an overall summary of these deviations between the original series and Born Again, he then affirmed, “I really feel that Netflix’s Daredevil, which I know in my blood, was much more noir, and this show is more New York crime story.”
“It has elements of The Sopranos and King Of New York,” said the showrunner. “There’s a feeling for those classic ’90s crime tales. It has a pace and a scope that, for a lot of reasons, Netflix wasn’t able to do. They were very dark, cinematically, not necessarily story-wise, although there were some dark elements. We’re much darker.”
To this end, Scardapone would subsequently draw a comparison between Born Again and DC’s recent HBO hit The Penguin, telling SFX that the Marvel crime series was “even more grounded” than the one made by its rival comic book publisher.
“It’s really strange,” he said. “You work in a vacuum and then something else comes out and you go, ‘Oh, wow’. I would say in many ways The Penguin is our direct competition. However, we’re even more grounded, even less stylized, even more rooted in the here and now. I loved Penguin. We’re a little faster, meaner, cleaner in our storytelling.”
Further, he promised that contrary to the widespread fear that Horn Head’s move to Disney Plus would see the ‘edges’ sanded off of his story, Born Again would actually lean in to the brutal and gritty nature of the hero’s story.
“It has a pace and a scope that, for a lot of reasons, Netflix wasn’t able to do,” said Scardapone. “They were very dark cinematically, not necessarily story-wise, although there were some dark elements. We’re much darker. This is as far as a Disney Plus show has ever gone.”
Given Scardapone’s aversion to what he classifies as “navel-gazing”, it will be interesting to see just how Born Again handles, if at all, the moments of deep character introspection and development, such as Daredevil and Punisher’s rooftop debate or the former’s numerous post-battle discussions with Claire Temple, that the original series has become widely known for.
Barring any unforeseen delays (no pun intended), Matt Murdock is currently on track to make his solo MCU debut on March 4th when Daredevil: Born Again premieres on Disney Plus.
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