In essentially putting the final nail in She-Hulk: Attorney at Law‘s coffin, Daredevil: Born Again showrunner Dario Scardapane says that although The Man Without Fear’s past Marvel Cinematic Universe appearances are considered canon to his upcoming Disney Plus revival, some of their events, such as his “one night stand with She-Hulk”, will essentially be ‘ignored’ going forward.
Scardapane, whose work on Born Again will mark his second foray into the MCU following his previous work as a writer and producer on Netflix’s The Punisher, spoke to his approach towards Daredevil’s past franchise history during a recent interview given to SFX Magazine for their upcoming January issue.
Pressed as to just how much freedom he had to play with, especially considering the established continuity of the franchise and the fact that its foreseeable future is already mapped out, the showrunner recalled, “Marvel has a master plan, and what you’re doing causes ripple effects.”
“I would pitch stuff very early and I would hear that they had other plans,” he added. “I have plenty of leeway up until I hit the larger-scale plan for the MCU. So I try to ignore some stuff [from the wider universe].”
From there, Scardapane turned to clarify exactly which parts of Daredevil’s previous appearances – which at current include a brief cameo as Peter Parker’s lawyer in Spider-Man: No Way Home, his aforementioned ‘overnight outing’ in She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, and a short-but-heavily-relied-on-for-the-series-marketing fight scene against the titular protagonist in Echo – would be considered hard canon to Horn Head’s next adventure.
“We establish a very specific Daredevil, both in terms of his dilemma, down to the suit and where we’re picking him up in his life,” said the showrunner. “You can say that Daredevil is canon in the MCU, those other events happened, but some of them we are not leaning into.”
Offering one specific example of an event that Born Again would be leaving in the past, he then affirmed, “His one-night stand with She-Hulk may be one of those things.”
Drawing his insight into the current state of Daredevil’s narrative history to a close, Scardapane told his hosts, “They’ve moved Matt through other corners of the MCU, and now he’s back in his own story.”
“I don’t want to give anything away, but you’re going to see a character [in Born Again] you never thought you would, but they get folded into the story in a manner that is organic and exists in our world,” he concluded, ultimately teasing a yet-to-be-revealed cameo. “New York, in the current state of the MCU, has a lot of stuff going on.”
At current, Scardapane and his team’s “specific” version of The Man Without Fear is on track to make his first leap into the MCU when Daredevil: Born Again hits Disney Plus on March 4th.