As Marvel prepares to take the first step on the road to The Defenders with the Netflix miniseries Daredevil, Marvel’s chief creative officer Joe Quesada has spoken to ComicBookResources about introducing Matt Murdock to the Cinematic Universe after regaining the rights from 20th Century Fox…
“Let me be clear, we’re not going into this show with the idea of trying to erase the memory of anything that came before or really any preconceived notions whatsoever,” said Quesada, when asked if the series provided an opportunity to make up for Fox’s 2003 adaptation starring Ben Affleck. “We’re going into the show trying to create something that’s incredibly exciting, incredibly engaging, and will give our fans something that they love, something that’s unexpected, something that’s going to keep them coming back for more. That’s really, ultimately, the goal of this: How do we produce a Daredevil TV show on Netflix, that’s going to be viewed the way that people view content on Netflix, in a way that’s going to be compelling, feels unique, while bringing something that is not only true to the character, but providing something unexpected as well?”
Quesada then went on to discuss how the Netflix format of releasing the entire series at once has informed their plans for Daredevil and the other Defenders miniseries: “One of the advantages is really from the planning stage — obviously it’s much easier to work with a smaller number of episodes than it is with a larger number of episodes. We can sit there and look at 13 episodes and plan it out as a very large movie. It makes seeing the bigger picture a little bit easier. You can’t deny that there will be binge-viewing. You know that there are going to be some Marvel fans that when this show premieres, they are going to go on to Netflix, and they are going to sit there for 12 to 13-plus hours, and watch the entire thing all the way through. It’s going to happen. The Netflix model offers us the advantage of being able to construct the show in a manner that is very different than a weekly network TV show. Even the way that you parse out information and reveals within the show can be different than you would on weekly TV. With weekly TV, you sit there and go, ‘The audience may not want to wait two or three weeks to get this particular bit of information.’ Whereas with Netflix, we might be able to hold onto a particular piece of information, because they may just watch it two hours later. It’s a different kind of construction. The simplest way to put it in comic book terms is that it’s the difference between writing a monthly comic series as opposed to writing a graphic novel. You can tell the same story within the same page count in both formats, but you may parse out that information or construct your story differently because of how it’s going to be delivered and consumed.”
Daredevil is set to go into production in July under Drew Goddard (The Cabin in the Woods) and is due to land on Netflix some time next year.
Originally published May 11, 2014. Updated April 12, 2018.
