Daredevil: Born Again Showrunner Dario Scardapane Angers Fans

Television

Dario Scardapane, the showrunner of Daredevil: Born Again, is hyping the show in the lead-up to its premiere on Disney+ on March 4, 2025, but some of his comments are rubbing fans the wrong way. Speaking to SFX magazine (represented online by GamesRadar+, as are publications like Total Film and Retro Gamer), Scardapane compared Daredevil: Born Again to the Netflix iteration of Daredevil to which Born Again is a sequel, or revival, or whatever you want to call it, and to The Penguin, the recent HBO series based on the titular Batman villain. Both are dark, gritty, highly acclaimed crime series that are beloved by fans, so it’s wise to tread carefully when comparing your own work to shows like that. But Scardapane stomped a bit instead. And I’m split between them; his Daredevil comments really annoyed me, but the Penguin ones seem fairly benign. Here’s what Scardapane had to say about Netflix’s Daredevil:

“There is more fun in the moments with these characters and a lot less navel-gazing than before… The earlier show, at its best, was fantastic. At its worst, it was two characters in a room talking about what a hero is. I felt that had been done. I’m not taking swipes. I just didn’t want to hear characters grousing about their lot in life. I wanted to see them doing things… I really feel that Netflix’s Daredevil, which I know in my blood, was much more noir, and this show is more New York crime story… It has elements of The Sopranos and King Of New York. There’s a feeling for those classic ‘90s crime tales. It has a pace and a scope that, for a lot of reasons, Netflix wasn’t able to do. They were very dark, cinematically, not necessarily story-wise, although there were some dark elements. We’re much darker.”

This is definitely the worse of the two, and I don’t like that Scardapane denigrates some of the best stuff in Daredevil. (And despite his insistence that he isn’t “taking swipes,” he definitely is.) One of the major themes in Daredevil was Matt Murdock wrestling with his conscience, particularly his Catholic beliefs, in determining what it means to be a hero. It’s a constant struggle he faces, which is mirrored in the Christian struggle to live a good life in accordance with his beliefs. (Sidebar: this is why Matt’s Catholicism is a necessary component of the show and needs to be present in Born Again.) Mauler posted on X about how the Punisher was a great foil to this struggle because of his absolute conviction in his brand of justice, which is much more extreme than Matt’s, and he’s absolutely right. The Punisher made Matt question whether he may be wrong, that maybe he should be more flexible in his morality, and the final episode of season 2 was the perfect culmination of that. (That quick, instinctive look Matt gives Frank when he starts picking off the Hand ninjas is magnificent, even more so because Matt can’t actually see Frank.) To write this off as navel-gazing is not only arrogantly dismissive of an outstanding show – to which you are being handed the keys – but worrying about what you have in store for the characters. Seriously, between this guy and Anthony Mackie, Marvel needs to teach its employees how to sell their product.

Describing some of the best episodes of the series as naval-gazing is next level audience reassurance for the new series.

Daredevil is built on his continued introspection, his actions being pulled between contrasting worlds. Punisher being the darker hero with definitive… pic.twitter.com/79ep7QaW72

— MauLer (@MauLer93) January 26, 2025

You know what I find to be much more boring and repetitive than Matt Murdock pondering the nature of good and evil? Frank Castle constantly retiring from being the Punisher before he even fully becomes the Punisher. And that’s Dario Scardapane’s only contribution to Marvel before Born Again is released: he was the showrunner of The Punisher, a show that never had Frank Castle fully become the Punisher until the final frame of the final episode. What makes it worse is that it was completely unnecessary because season 2 of Daredevil was an excellent origin story for the Punisher, showing his evolution from a broken dad avenging his family to a soldier fighting a new war, and it was all tied back to his time as a Marine. Scardapane essentially erased all of that and had Castle in a constant state of becoming. And that Born Again trailer makes it look like he’s pulling that thread yet again with Frank Castle and Matt Murdock. I’m well over this tired trope in general, but I especially don’t want to see it in this universe again.

As for the noir vs. New York crime story comparison, that’s okay, and I’m happy to wait and see how that plays out. Scardapane invoked The Sopranos and King of New York, both of which are great, thematically rich, dark, and violent, so that’s not a bad thing. Interestingly, both of them also have themes about the thin line between good and evil, especially King of New York. Frank White, Christopher Walken’s character in that film, was a violent gangster who dealt drugs and killed people, but he also opened children’s hospitals in poor neighborhoods and tried to better downtrodden communities; the movie made you ask if the trade-off was worth it. I wonder if that will inform the Kingpin-as-mayor storyline in Daredevil: Born Again, with Kingpin doing a lot of good for New York despite his criminal activities and Daredevil wondering if bringing him down is the right thing to do. (This could also be a callback to his season 1 persona, where Kingpin saw himself as the savior of Hell’s Kitchen; perhaps now, he believes he’s found a better way to go about that.) But maybe none of that will happen because Scardapane thinks that’s navel-gazing.

His next remarks were about The Penguin, and honestly, they don’t bother me:

“It’s really strange. You work in a vacuum and then something else comes out and you go, ‘Oh, wow.’ I would say in many ways The Penguin is our direct competition. However, we’re even more grounded, even less stylized, even more rooted in the here and now. I loved Penguin. We’re a little faster, meaner, cleaner in our storytelling.”

Whatever. I absolutely adored The Penguin, but I don’t mind Scardapane puffing up his new show by comparing it favorably to something else. This may sound silly, but it didn’t even occur to me to compare the two, despite their similar settings and tones, just like I didn’t compare The Penguin to Netflix’s Daredevil. I don’t think Scardapane has to see The Penguin as competition, and viewers will surely welcome two great series (provided Born Again is any good) instead of determining that they can only like one or the other, which is stupid.

But in fairness to Scardapane, he gets a lot of points for what he had to say about Daredevil’s appearance on She-Hulk, if only for the laughs:

“I have plenty of leeway up until I hit the larger-scale plan for the MCU. So I try to ignore some stuff [from the wider universe]. We establish a very specific Daredevil, both in terms of his dilemma, down to the suit and where we’re picking him up in his life. You can say that Daredevil is canon in the MCU, those other events [in Spider-Man and She-Hulk] happened, but some of them we are not leaning into. His one-night stand with She-Hulk may be one of those things.”

This is the right way to go. Sure, it’s technically canon, but let’s never speak of it again; the same is true for Kingpin’s appearances in Hawkeye and Echo. There’s also probably no reason to mention Matt’s cameo in Spider-Man: No Way Home. I liked it, but it was very situational and shouldn’t have much bearing on Born Again unless they decide to make a quick reference to Spidey. On the other hand, I imagine events from Netflix’s Daredevil will be more important to the new show, especially now that Karen Page and Foggy Nelson are back. And I’m in pretty much the same position I was: optimistic about Daredevil: Born Again but prepared to be disappointed.

Let us know what you think of what Dario Scardapane had to say about Daredevil and The Penguin in the comments!

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