Daredevil (TV series)

Premise

The first season sees lawyer-by-day Matt Murdock use his heightened senses from being blinded as a young boy to fight crime at night on the streets of New York City's Hell's Kitchen neighborhood as Daredevil, while uncovering a conspiracy of the criminal underworld being led by Wilson Fisk. In the second season, Murdock continues to balance life as a lawyer and Daredevil, while crossing paths with Frank Castle / Punisher, a vigilante with far deadlier methods as well as the return of his old girlfriend—Elektra Natchios.

Cast and characters

Charlie Cox as Matt Murdock / Daredevil:

A blind lawyer who becomes the hero Daredevil. Season one showrunner Steven DeKnight explained that Murdock is "not super strong. He's not invulnerable... he just has senses that are better than a normal human's." On the character's "grey" morals, he noted, "He's a lawyer by day, and he's taken this oath. But every night he breaks that oath, and goes out and does very violent things." The character's Catholicism plays a large role in the series, with DeKnight calling him "one of the most, if not the most, religious characters in the Marvel Universe". Cox worked with blind consultant Joe Strechay, and was conscious of what his eyes were doing at all times, to ensure they would not look at or react to something unlike a blind person. Skylar Gaertner plays a young Matt Murdock.

Deborah Ann Woll as Karen Page:

An enigmatic young woman whose quest for justice sends her crashing into Murdock's life. After portraying Jessica Hamby in True Blood from 2008–14, Woll specifically tried to "steer differently than that" with Page. Woll noted that Page's backstory would be different than the one from the comics, saying, "In the comic books, in the beginning Karen is very innocent, and then towards the end she's really swung a full 180, she's in a lot of trouble, so I wanted to find a way to make her both of those things at the same time. Can she be a really wonderful, kind person who is a little bit attracted to danger? She's not just always getting into trouble because 'Oh, silly woman!' Karen is actually looking for it, and she won't let her fear stop her from finding the truth."

Elden Henson as Franklin "Foggy" Nelson:

Murdock's close friend and law partner. In April 2015, Henson spoke of his excitement for the character's role in the series, saying "I was really excited as I was getting the scripts and reading that Foggy wasn't just a useless sidekick. He's not just comic relief. I mean, he is some of those things. He does have comic relief, but it was exciting to know that these other characters would have their own path and their own things that they're dealing with."

Toby Leonard Moore as James Wesley: Fisk's right hand man. Moore described Wesley as both charming and "dastardly as all hell".

Vondie Curtis-Hall as Ben Urich: An investigative journalist for the New York Bulletin.

Bob Gunton as Leland Owlsley: A Wall Street financialist and a key figure in Fisk's plans for Hell's Kitchen.

Ayelet Zurer as Vanessa Marianna: An art gallery employee who, unlike the comic version, knows of and accepts Wilson Fisk's true dealings.

Rosario Dawson as Claire Temple:

A nurse who helps Murdock. The character is an amalgam of the comic characters Claire Temple and Night Nurse. The character was originally going to be "the actual Night Nurse", but was merged with Temple when the writers learned that Marvel Studios had plans for that character in their films. Dawson explained that Temple "is a normal person and she becomes more heroic in a way that she maybe didn't expect", and went on to state that "She's not a love interest—she's this skeptical eye looking at this strange situation. She's the one who can be like, "You're not really good at this." That makes it feel more real."

Vincent D'Onofrio as Wilson Fisk / Kingpin:

A powerful businessman whose interests in the future of Hell's Kitchen brings him into conflict with Murdock and Daredevil. D'Onofrio stated that he hoped his portrayal of Fisk was a new way to look at the character, and that it would be the definitive portrayal of Fisk. DeKnight detailed that "Fisk has very many different aspects so it's not all, "I want to conquer the city and make a lot of money". In our story, we tell the story of how he met his wife Vanessa and how they fell in love". He also said that "if you're looking for a juicy, multi-faceted crime drama, Wilson Fisk was the obvious choice to play the antagonist ... [he] really felt like the right yin to the yang for Matt, and for what we wanted to do this season." Cole Jensen plays a young Wilson Fisk.

Jon Bernthal as Frank Castle / Punisher:

A vigilante who aims to clean up Hell's Kitchen by any means necessary, no matter how lethal the results. DeKnight said this version of Punisher would be "completely the Marvel version," as previous portrayals did not appear under the Marvel Studios / Marvel Television banner. He also felt Bernthal's Punisher would not be as "graphically violent" as in Punisher: War Zone. Season two showrunner Doug Petrie stated that Travis Bickle from Taxi Driver was an influence on the character, as well as current events, saying, "Taking lethal justice into your own hands in America in 2015 is tricky shit. We have not shied away from the rich complicated reality of Now. If you've got a gun and you're not the police you're going to incite strong feelings." Bernthal added that "This character has resonated with law enforcement and military ... and the best thing about him is that if he offends you, he just doesn't care."

Élodie Yung as Elektra Natchios:

A mysterious and dangerous woman from Murdock's past. The character was referred to in the first season, before Yung was cast in the role. Describing Elektra's effect on Murdock, Petrie called her "the best bad girlfriend you can possibly have. She does everything wrong and attractive, she's [Matt's] id, the wild side. Matt is always taming his wild side. Elektra just lets it out. He's both repulsed and deeply drawn to that." Yung described Elektra as "kind of a sociopath. This world is a game for her. It's like a chess game, and what motivates her is what she wants. She'll use anything she needs to use to get to her goal, and if she needs to kill people, she would." She added that Elektra is neither good nor bad, but a "person with different traits" and layers. Lily Chee plays a young Elektra.

Stephen Rider as Blake Tower: A New York district attorney who assists Daredevil "with information to help track down and capture criminals."

Season 3

The series was renewed for a third season in July 2016. Initially thought to be released in 2017, Netflix COO Ted Sarandos stated shortly after the announcement that the season would not debut until 2018 at the earliest, after Marvel's The Defenders is released in 2017.

Development

In April 2013, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige confirmed that the film rights to Daredevil and his associated characters reverted to Marvel from 20th Century Fox in October 2012, allowing those characters to be used within the Marvel Cinematic Universe. As explained by head of Marvel Television Jeph Loeb in 2015, Marvel Studios had "first dibs" on the character once the rights had reverted. Drew Goddard pitched a new Daredevil film to Marvel, but Marvel was not looking to create an R-rated film, and Goddard did not want a "watered down version" of the character, as he also explained in 2015: "I went into Marvel and talked to them about making it as a movie a couple of years ago, long after the Affleck movie. But what we all sort of realised is that, this movie doesn't want to cost $200 million. The thing about Matt Murdock is, he's not saving the world. He's just keeping his corner clean. So it would feel wrong to have spaceships crashing in the middle of the city. But because of that, Marvel on the movie side is not in the business of making $25 million movies. They're going big, as they should." Marvel Studios eventutally decided that the character would be better served in a television series.

In October 2013, Deadline reported that Marvel was preparing four drama series and a miniseries, totaling 60 episodes, to present to video on demand services and cable providers, with Netflix, Amazon and WGN America expressing interest. A few weeks later, Marvel and Disney announced that Marvel Television and ABC Studios would provide Netflix with live action series centered around Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Iron Fist, and Luke Cage, leading up to a miniseries based on the Defenders. This format was chosen due to the success of Marvel's The Avengers, for which the characters of Iron Man, The Hulk, Captain America, and Thor were all introduced separately before being teamed up in that film. In December, Goddard was officially hired as executive producer and showrunner for Daredevil, but Marvel announced in May 2014 that he had stepped down from the role to focus on directing a feature film based on Marvel's Sinister Six for Sony Pictures Entertainment. Goddard, who wrote the first two episodes of the series, remained with the show as a consultant and executive producer, while Steven S. DeKnight took over as showrunner. Marvel revealed that the series would officially be titled Marvel's Daredevil, with DeKnight, Goddard, Loeb, Jim Chory, Dan Buckley, Joe Quesada, Stan Lee, Alan Fine, Cindy Holland, Kris Henigman, Allie Goss, and Peter Friedlander serving as executive producers.

In April 2015, Marvel and Netflix announced that Daredevil had been renewed for a second season, but DeKnight would not be returning due to prior commitments. He was replaced as showrunner by Doug Petrie and Marco Ramirez, who served as writers for the first season and worked closely with DeKnight and Goddard. Petrie, Ramirez, Alison Engel, and Mark Verheiden joined the executive producing team for the second season, while Friedlander also left the show. The series was renewed for a third season in July 2016, with Petrie and Ramirez returning as showrunners.

Writing

On choosing to write the character and develop the series initially, Goddard said, "With Matt Murdock I just had such a personal connection to that character it was just like, 'I have to do this.' I don't want to ... be a guy that just takes the comics and then shoots them onscreen. I think it's our job to treat it as if it's our run. If I'm the writer of a comic book, you wouldn't just retell someone else's story, you would just take that ball and move it forward."

In August 2014, when talking about the series in comparison to the 2003 film, Ted Sarandos said, "The series will not be afraid to go darker than the film did. What we love about this particular set of heroes is that they're a little more down to Earth. Costume wise and also in that these are gritty crime stories, more in the streets than in the clouds." Elaborating on this, DeKnight said, "It is a little grittier and edgier than Marvel has gone before, but we're not looking to push it to extreme graphic violence, gratuitous nudity or anything like that. The story does not require that and I think [it] would suffer if you pushed it that far." Marvel Television head and executive producer Loeb later stated that, "There aren't going to be people flying through the sky; there are no magic hammers. We've always approached this as a crime drama first, superhero show second." DeKnight took inspiration from The French Connection, Dog Day Afternoon, and Taxi Driver, and stated that "we would rather lean toward The Wire than what's considered a classic superhero television show."

Loeb compared the series' approach to telling stories over multiple seasons to "the world of publishing, where you have the Frank Miller, you have the Brian Bendis run, you have the Ed Brubaker run. I was lucky enough to do Daredevil: Yellow. But they feel different. They have different elements to them. Same cast. In many cases, same tone. But a different adventure ... you can watch Daredevil season two without having seen Daredevil season one. But if you watch each of them, it's like getting two different books. It's closer to the world of the graphic novel than it is to the world of the ongoing, serialized show."

Casting

At the end of May 2014, Charlie Cox was cast as Daredevil. Cox was the first choice for the role, suggested by Quesada in 2012 before Marvel Studios gained the rights to the character from 20th Century Fox. On June 10, Marvel announced that Vincent D'Onofrio would portray Wilson Fisk / Kingpin in the series, and on June 20, Rosario Dawson joined the cast. A few days later, Elden Henson was cast as Foggy Nelson, while on July 17, Deborah Ann Woll was cast as Karen Page. On October 11, Dawson's role was revealed to be Claire Temple, a character resembling that of Night Nurse, while Ayelet Zurer, Bob Gunton, Toby Leonard Moore, and Vondie Curtis-Hall joined the series as Vanessa Mariana, Leland Owlsley, Wesley, and Ben Urich, respectively.

In June 2015, Marvel announced that Jon Bernthal was cast as Frank Castle / Punisher for the second season, joining season one returners Cox, Woll, Henson, Dawson and D'Onofrio. The next month, Élodie Yung was cast as Elektra Natchios, a character that had been mentioned already in the first season. In September 2015, Stephen Rider joined the cast in the role of Blake Tower.

On the casting process, DeKnight stated that "You just have to hope you find the right way. Luckily our cast came together, and I couldn't have been happier. No one will ever perfectly fit what's in your head. For me, the more important thing is not whether or not they look the part, but if they feel the part." Laray Mayfield and Julie Schubert served as casting directors on the series.

Costumes

Costume designer Stephanie Maslansky, talking about the inspiration and vision for the series, said "Daredevil is rooted in the authentically gritty New York City neighborhood, Hell's Kitchen where Matt Murdock grew up. In the comics—particularly those of the Frank Miller era in the early 1990s—there were detailed illustrations we endeavored to bring to life in a grounded, gritty, and updated way, with respect and a strong nod to the original characters. We wanted to pick up where the comics version left off. I studied the illustrations from The Man Without Fear, Daredevil Yellow, and the issues of the 1960s, to which the newer collections pay homage. I wanted the costume design to reflect the illustrations of those volumes through a modern lens while maintaining a retro sensibility." Joshua Shaw, who has also done design work on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., helped design costumes for several characters on Daredevil, while Lorraine Calvert took over as costume designer for the second season.

For Daredevil's red suit, introduced at the end of the first season, Marvel Comics' Chief Creative Officer Quesada contacted Ryan Meinerding and the costume artists and design team at Marvel Studios, who all contributed design ideas, with one of Meinerding's ultimately being picked. Quesada, who previously worked as an artist on Daredevil comics, gave several suggestions, including the incorporation of some of how New York was created into the suit, which lead to the use of rivets and "architectural" shapes. The suit is intended to look like a Kevlar vest, and the black sections are an homage to comic panels where the artists higlighted certain areas with red, with "deeper portions" in shadow. On the mask, Meinerding noted the difficulty in designing the entire top half of a face that is intended to match the bottom half of an actor's face, "because half of his face has to be covered and has its own expression and the actor's face is going to be doing something else". For the billy clubs used by Daredevil in the series, which were designed by Andy Park, "There was a discussion early in the process, because Charlie Cox [and his stunt double] Chris Brewster are both right handed, of having the billy clubs holster on the right leg. But Daredevil wears those billy clubs on the left hand side. So while it would have been easier to place the holster on the right we all felt that we had to keep to the classic profile and keep them on the left."

The suit was upgraded for the second season, with Calvert calling it "a much more fluid suit and much more tactical in a way." The costume department "streamlined" the suit to make it simpler, using less material on the gauntlets and boots. Cox described the changes as "tweaks" that were needed after seeing the suit in action in the first season, and noted that the changes are weaved into the storyline of the season, including the need for a new, redesigned mask.

Title sequence

The opening title sequence was created by Elastic. The company previously created the title sequence for True Detective, which had stood out to the creators in terms of "imagination and delivering on what the show was about". DeKnight explained that multiple companies had made pitches to the creative team involving "variations of the same idea, where you zoom in on an eye and you see a sonar map of the city." However, one of Elastic's pitches had "fluid-like blood dripping over everything ... as if paint were covering something invisible and revealing it", which both DeKnight and Loeb wanted to use immediately.

Elastic's Creative Director Patrick Clair "came up with the idea of making a red world that was revealed by liquid." Simulating the CG liquid, which was meant to be an ambiguous reference to poison and blood that behaved like "something in between liquid chocolate and tar", was difficult, with Clair saying "It's hard to make an algorithm act "insidious"". CG Lead Andrew Romatz elaborated that "Developing the right consistency and behavior of the fluids was definitely a tricky process. Getting the scale to feel right was something that we had to play with quite a bit in simulation and also in lighting and texturing. Patrick wanted the sculptures we were forming to feel like miniatures, so we did a lot of experimenting with scene scale and with camera settings, simulating depth of field to achieve that look." Fluids Lead Miguel A. Salek stated that "Each shot required custom flow maps to be painted on the sculptures, along with small attraction fields and thousands of tiny adjustments to achieve the shapes and behavior Patrick was looking for. In the end I simulated hundreds of tests and thousands of frames of fluids to achieve just the right balance for each shot." Due to time constraints, references to Murdock's boxing history such as a punching bag and boxing ring were cut from the final sequence. The final sequence was animated to a temp track—"an old piece of 90s trip hop"—before John Paesano's music for the sequence was completed.

Filming

Filming for the series takes place in New York City, in areas of Brooklyn and Long Island City that still look like the old Hell's Kitchen, in addition to sound stage work. The production has an eight-day-per-episode shooting schedule. On the feel of the show, DeKnight stated, "We're going for a gritty, 1970s' New York feel for the show. We love the idea of beauty and the decay of the city, and Hell's Kitchen being a place that's both beautiful and gritty at the same time. And that's why Matt Murdock loves it and wants to protect it." The series' action sequences take inspiration from The Raid films.

Visual effects

Visual effects for the series were completed by the New York studio Shade VFX. Bryan Goswin serves as visual effects supervisor.

Music

It was revealed that John Paesano would be composing the music for the series in October 2014. The main theme of the series, which was co-composed by Braden Kimball, is derived from Paesano's original demo for the series, which he submitted during the auditioning process. Paesano noted that it is rare for such material to be incorporated into a final score like this. A soundtrack album for the first season was released on iTunes on April 27, 2015, and for the second season on July 15, 2016.

Marvel Cinematic Universe tie-ins

Daredevil is the first of the ordered Netflix series, and is followed by Marvel's Jessica Jones and Marvel's Luke Cage, which will be followed by Marvel's Iron Fist, before leading into the miniseries, Marvel's The Defenders. In November 2013, Disney CEO Bob Iger stated that, if the characters prove popular on Netflix, "It's quite possible that they could become feature films," which Sarandos echoed in July 2015. In August 2014, D'Onofrio stated that after the "series stuff with Netflix", Marvel has "a bigger plan to branch out". In December 2014, Loeb explained that "Within the Marvel universe there are thousands of heroes of all shapes and sizes, but the Avengers are here to save the universe and Daredevil is here to save the neighborhood ... It does take place in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It's all connected. But that doesn't necessarily mean that we would look up in the sky and see [Iron Man]. It's just a different part of New York that we have not yet seen in the Marvel movies." Dawson later elaborated that "When you've got that level of superpowers, the fighting is different, the stakes are different, and it has a grander feel. In that world, they exist in it, so they know it and it's normal to them. But in reality when people are fighting and doing really bad, elicit [sic] crimes on the ground and there are guns and drugs—bones are going to break. People aren't hitting each other and nothing's going to happen because they're indestructible. These are people. They're vulnerable and you get to experience that."

In March 2015, Loeb spoke on the ability for the series to crossover with the MCU films and the ABC television series, saying, "As it is now, in the same way that our films started out as self-contained and then by the time we got to The Avengers, it became more practical for Captain America to do a little crossover into Thor 2 and for Bruce Banner to appear at the end of Iron Man 3. We have to earn that. The audience needs to understand who all of these characters are and what the world is before you then start co-mingling in terms of where it's going." In April, Cox stated that crossing over with the films is "possible. I think there's a way that the worlds can merge. I think our show feels tonally and thematically a bit different from The Avengers movies, but it's all one universe and I feel like there's a way for Daredevil—and other characters, Luke Cage and street level crime characters—to fit into that universe. I think there has to be a way, and I think it's about finding an autonomous tone for that [crossover] film". Cox also said that he is contractually obligated to appear in films if asked by Marvel.

Release

Daredevil is available on the streaming service Netflix, in all territories where it is available, in Ultra HD 4K and high dynamic range (HDR). The first two seasons were enhanced to be available in HDR after their initial release by post-production vendor Deluxe. The episodes for each season were released simultaneously, as opposed to a serialized format, to encourage binge-watching, a format which has been successful for other Netflix original series. Daredevil was the first Netflix original series to receive its Descriptive Video Service audio description track.

Marketing

Disney Consumer Products created a small line of products to cater to a more adult audience, given the show's edgier tone. Paul Gitter, senior VP of Marvel Licensing for Disney Consumer Products explained that the focus would be more on teens and adults than very young people, with products at outlets like Hot Topic. Additionally, a Marvel Knights merchandise program was created to support the series, which creates new opportunities for individual product lines and collector focused products. Licensing partners wanted to pair up with Marvel, despite this not being a film project, given its previous successes.

Critical response

The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 98% approval rating for the first season, based on 51 reviews, with an average rating of 8/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "With tight adherence to its source material's history, high production quality, and a no-nonsense dramatic flair, Daredevil excels as an effective superhero origin story, a gritty procedural, and an exciting action adventure." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 75 out of 100, based on 22 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". The second season has a 75% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 32 reviews, with an average rating of 7.3/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Bolstered by some impressive action, Daredevil keeps its footing in season two, even if the additions of Punisher and Elektra can't quite fill the void left by Wilson Fisk." On Metacritic, it has a score of 68 out of 100, based on 13 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

Accolades

In December 2015, IGN named Daredevil the second best Netflix original programming series released to date.

Spin-off

By January 2016, ahead of the debut of Bernthal as armed vigilante Frank Castle / Punisher in season two, Netflix was in "very early development" on a spin-off series titled The Punisher, and was looking for a showrunner. The series would be centered on Bernthal as Castle, and was described as a stand-alone project, outside of the series leading up to The Defenders. Loeb implied that Marvel Television had not instigated the development of the spin-off and were focusing on making "the best 13 episodes of Daredevil season two" at the time, but did say, "I'm never going to discourage a network from looking at one of our characters and encouraging us to do more....If we are lucky enough that through the writing, through the direction, through the actor that people want to see more of that person, terrific." In April 2016, Marvel and Netflix ordered The Punisher, confirmed Bernthal's involvement and named Steve Lightfoot as showrunner. Woll reprises her role as Karen Page in the series.

Other media

In November 2015, an update for the mobile fighting game, Marvel: Contest of Champions, was released featuring a six-part story quest involving Daredevil and Jessica Jones, along with a level based on Hell's Kitchen.