“What happens in the comics is a writer and an artist will team up for a run of a comic, so they’ll do 10 issues, 20 issues,” says Cox, describing the methodology of a prospective Daredevil return run. “If there was an opportunity for me to come back as Daredevil, whatever that would look like, I imagine it would be a reimagining of the character and the show. If they choose me to do it, there are going to be some elements that are of course the same. Or they might choose someone else and reboot it all over again.”
Consequently, Cox is clearly playing coy with his answer, especially since he also teases the idea of Murdock/Daredevil being recast. While anything is possible, such a scenario is highly unlikely with the widespread acclaim reaped upon his performance across Netflix’s 2015-2018 Daredevil series and 2017 single-season crossover event series The Defenders. Indeed, Cox’s rendition of Marvel Comics’ Man without Fear has achieved a kind of cult status, creating a backlash that would be hard to quell amidst a potential recasting. Moreover, his Daredevil is the definitive representative of subsequent Netflix misfit Marvel shows Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist and The Punisher, which many see as having been unjustly relegated to the realm of apocrypha after cancellation and changing company landscapes led to more-polished, direct MCU television offerings on Disney+ like WandaVision, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Loki and the imminent Hawkeye.
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When posed with the shocking scenario of Daredevil being recast, Cox states cheekily, “I would go down into my basement. I would find my Daredevil mask that I have. And I would hunt them down. I would make them fight me for it.” Of course he would subsequently offer the more-gracious (albeit less-interesting) answer that he would not give advice to any would-be successors, since he would want them to discover the character for themselves in the same way that he had done, and hopes it proves as fulfilling as it was for him.
“We must also be grateful. Because if nothing ever happens going forward, we’ve got three great seasons of television, and we haven’t ruined it,” says Cox. “You’ve got to be careful what you wish for. You come back and it’s not as good or it doesn’t quite work or it’s too much time has passed. It doesn’t quite come together in the same way. You don’t want to taint what you’ve already got. If we never come back, you’ve got these three great seasons and our third season was our best reviewed. So, the trajectory was up. I am tremendously proud and grateful for what we have.”
Nevertheless, a reboot of Matt Murdock/Daredevil—as played by Cox—in the MCU could prove to be the boon for which fans of the gone-but-not-forgotten Netflix series have long-wished. It might even become a blessing in disguise since, as fondly-remembered as Daredevil and its fellow Netflix peers may be, the shows were anything but perfect, and stand in contrast—in tone and production quality—from the carefully-curated MCU. Thus, now years removed from the implosion of Marvel’s Street Level continuity, Daredevil has a chance for a fresh start in the MCU’s more ostentatious big screen arena. In that sense, it’s still a shared win for left-behind heroes like Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist and (at least for now,) The Punisher.
