2015 is shaping up to be a huge year for Marvel Studios, what with the feature films Avengers: Age of Ultron and Ant-Man, the remainder of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season two and the new Agent Carter series on ABC, and of course the first of Marvel’s five Netflix shows, Daredevil. As we await the first footage of the Man Without Fear’s miniseries, showrunner Steven S. DeKnight has been speaking about the villains who will be going up against Charlie Cox’s Matt Murdock, as well as comparing the tone to that of The Wire.
“I wouldn’t say there’s no plans to include him in the series,” states DeKnight with regards to the fan favourite villain Bullseye. “It’s not not to say he wouldn’t be in the series at some point. But I think if you try to jam in too many characters, it just becomes a mess. And his story was told in the last iteration of Daredevil that anybody saw. My feeling was, ‘Why repeat it?’ And honestly, if you’re looking for a juicy, multi-faceted crime drama, Wilson Fisk was the obvious choice to play the antagonist. Bullseye is a little more cut and dry. Not to say you couldn’t make him fantastic over 13 hours, but Fisk really felt like the right yin to the yang for Matt, and for what we wanted to do this season.”
DeKnight went on to discuss the one villain we do know will feature – Wilson Fisk, a.k.a. The Kingpin, played by Vincent D’Onofrio: “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 — our antagonist actually has a love story. That’s the love story you’re following, the one you’re invested in, and seeing how that affects him and changes him… We really wanted to take our cue from [films like] The French Connection, Dog Day Afternoon, Taxi Driver, and make it very, very grounded, very gritty, very real. We always say we would rather lean toward The Wire than what’s considered a classic superhero television show.”
And as for the show’s tone, DeKnight added that: “When I came onto this there was no way I wanted to make this hard-R or NC-17,” I don’t think the material warrants that. 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 would suffer if you pushed it that far.”
Daredevil sees Charlie Cox (Stardust) leading the cast as Matt Murdoch/Daredevil alongside Deborah Ann Woll (True Blood) as Karen Page, Elden Henson (The Butterfly Effect) as Foggy Nelson, Vincent D’Onofrio (Law & Order: Criminal Intent) as the Kingpin, Scott Glenn (The Silence of the Lambs) as Stick, Peter Shinkoda (Falling Skies) as Hachiro, Rosario Dawson (Sin City: A Dame to Kill For) as Claire Temple / Night Nurse, Toby Moore (John Wick) as Wesley, Ayelet Zurer (Man of Steel) as Vanessa, Vondie Curtis-Hall (Chicago Hope) as Ben Urich and Bob Gunton (The Shawshank Redemption) as Leland Owlsley / The Owl.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL18yMRIfoszH_jfuJoo8HCG1-lGjvfH2F&v=eF_xnPWgEtI&feature=player_embedded
Originally published December 30, 2014. Updated April 15, 2018.
