After fully debuting his MCU-approved Matt Murdock/Daredevil in “She-Hulk: Attorney at Law” over the summer, actor Charlie Cox is finally getting ready to lead his own MCU project with the 18-episode Disney+ series “Daredevil: Born Again.” The actor confirmed to NME that he will spend nearly all of 2023 shooting the Marvel project.
“They said to me, ‘We’re going to be shooting in 2023’,” Cox said. “I said, ‘Great, when?’ They said, ‘All 2023’. I start shooting in February and finish in December.”
An 11-month shoot and an 18-episode season will make “Daredevil: Born Again” the biggest Marvel project on Disney+ so far. “I’m fascinated to discover why they’ve chosen to do 18,” Cox said. “I’m imagining there’s going to be an element to it that is like the old-school procedural show. Not necessarily case-of-the-week, but something where we go really deep into Matt Murdock the lawyer and get to see what his life is like. If that’s done right and he really gets his hands dirty with that world… I think there’s something quite interesting about that.”
There’s also the question of what a “Daredevil” show will look like on Disney+. Cox originally played the character on three seasons of Netflix’s “Daredevil,” which quickly became popular with fans due to its brooding tone and graphic violence. The Netflix series was a far cry from Disney’s more family-friendly image.
“My opinion is this character works best when he’s geared towards a slightly more mature audience,” Cox told NME. “My instinct is that on Disney+ it will be dark but it probably won’t be as gory. I would say to [people hoping the Disney+ show copies the Netflix show], we’ve done that. Let’s take the things that really worked, but can we broaden? Can we appeal to a slightly younger audience without losing what we’ve learned about what works?”
Cox’s supporting turn on “She-Hulk” earned praise from fans and gave them their first look at the lighter, Disney-approved iteration of the superhero. The character even had an updated suit. Cox spoke to Variety about what it was like putting on the new costume for the first time.
“When we were getting ready to shoot it, they took me out to Los Angeles to have a suit fitting, which I just assumed was to make sure that the old one still fit,” Cox said. “I showed up at this warehouse. Hanging in a bag on a railing was my suit that I recognized as the one I’d worn in the show before. While I was waiting, there was one computer-generated drawing on the wall of some other superhero. I was looking at it, like ‘Oh, that guy’s cool.’ And then I looked more carefully, and I was like, ‘Wait, that guy’s me.’”
Cox continued, “It was a rendering of this gold and red suit and I was like, ‘Oh my God, that is so cool.’ It’s such a great homage to some of the earlier Daredevil runs. I got goosebumps thinking about this moment, putting it on and the fans’ reaction.”
“Daredevil: Born Again” won’t debut on Disney+ until 2024.