Well, the studio tried, but its heart just didn’t seem in it. On the heels of David Slade dropping out of the character reboot and Joe Carnahan’s pitching to take over, 20th Century Fox has apparently decided to let the rights to Daredevil lapse back to Marvel Studios.
Variety reports that the clock is ticking down and that, while Fox was enthused by Carnahan’s pitch, there was just wasn’t the time to develop it properly and get the movie into production before the October deadline. This means that the Marvel team led by Kevin Feige will likely be back in control of Matt Murdock, Kingpin, Bullseye and the rest later this year.
Despite Carnahan embracing the chance to make a grittier take on the blind lawyer-turned-superhero, he tweeted yesterday that it was looking increasingly unlikely. "Think my idea for a certain retro, red-suited, Serpico-styled superhero went up in smoke today kids," Carnahan wrote, followed by "We shall see. Time is NOT on anyone's side."
Fox, of course, still has the rights to** X-Men **(including Wolverine), The Fantastic Four and Deadpool, with films for the first three in active development (and now in production, in Wolverine’s case). The “active development” is part of the studio’s deal with Marvel that lets it retain control. With no Daredevil film in production or close to it, the rights are headed back home.
Of course, there’s now the chance that Carnahan could approach Kevin Feige and co with his take on Matt Murdock, and find out whether Marvel and Disney would go for it.
If they're interested, Carnahan has put his demo reel, intended to show what his vision for Daredevil would be, online. You can see the more violent, NC-17 rated version at this link and the PG-13 version below.
For now, though, the Man Without Fear is a Man Without A Film.