Blind, crusading defence lawyer Matt Murdock is on his way to Netflix - see the first poster below - in an origin story that promises us the Batman Begins of Daredevil adaptations. The new issue of Empire boasts a big TV preview that takes us down to Hell’s Kitchen (actually New York’s Long Island City Stages) to watch Marvel’s newest old superhero in action. So what to expect from the show? Blood, it turns out. Plenty of it. “This is more sinister, and that really suits the character,” the man playing Murdock, Londoner Charlie Cox, tell us. “The hero and the villain… it’s a very blurry line. Let’s say that you didn’t know anything about Daredevil, hopefully you would feel a sense of ambiguity about who’s on the right path here. And, well, you know… we have blood.”
The claret, according to showrunner Steven S. DeKnight, will flow liberally as the attorney finds himself gradually and brutally introduced to a world of pain. “They don’t have a problem pushing it,” he says of Netflix’s approach to the violence. The streaming service is behind this MCU extension. “We call [Daredevil] a PG-16. We don’t quite get to R, but we kiss right up to it.”
DeKnight bills it as a crime drama with plenty of action, rather than an action piece set in a criminal world. “We always say we shoot for The Wire,” he elaborates, adding, “although no-one ever reaches The Wire. We also took our cues from classic cop movies of the ‘70s that we love: The French Connection, Dog Day Afternoon, movies like that.”
Don’t expect crossover with the Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. world; do expect a lot of post-Avengers cleanup in Murdock’s neighbourhood. They’ll need a big dustpan to sweep up all those Chitauri when Daredevil comes to Netflix from April 10.