Caffeinated Clint
Looks like the rights to Marvel comic character ‘Daredevil’ are reverting to Marvel Studios and Disney.
Deadline says Fox’s plan to reboot the film franchise have fallen through, with attached filmmaker Joe Carnahan – the rumoured director of Fox’s planned reincarnation (from Mad Murdock to Matt Murdock, hey!?) – essentially confirming plans had fallen through on his Twitter account.
“I think my idea for a certain retro, red-suited, Serpico-styled superhero went up in smoke today kids.”
Carnahan (“The A-Team”) sounds disappointed, but I doubt anybody will spot drying tear ducts near the eyes of the Fox execs. It sounds to me like Fox weren’t that keen on really making another ‘Daredevil’ movie, especially a version that sounds more Friedkin than Fluffy, thus, don’t bloody care so much that they’re now going to lose the rights to the Matt Murdock character.
You can appreciate both sides.
The studio didn’t make a lot of dosh on the Ben Affleck-starring “Daredevil” (nor spin-off “Elektra”), so likely aren’t seeing dollar signs with a revamp, and that’s probably partly the reason why they’ve always been lukewarm to any otherwise-brilliant filmmaker-suggested idea regarding the property. Daredevil isn’t Batman, Superman… even X-Men. So a sure-thing for Fox this was never going to be. At the same time, with the “X-Men” franchise, Fox may be convinced they’ll make enough money there to warrant their interests in the comic-book movie world there alone, so why bother with one that comes with a risk factor?
Having said that, they might also have lost out on bringing to the screen something very fucking cool – a “Serpico”-esque movie set within the world of Daredevil, Kingpin and so on? Now that would be worth ten bucks or so, right!?
Fox lose the rights to “Daredevil” if they don’t get going on a film version by October – which they won’t be. When “Twilight” alum David Slade departed the project a couple of months ago (to direct the pilot for NBC’s “Hannibal”), after speaking so positively about the project for so long, it left a grey cloud hanging over the project. Obviously Fox didn’t jump in the air when Slade told them his ideas, so he walked. But as I said, doesn’t sound like they’re jumping in the air for anyone’s ideas on “Daredevil” – cos they don’t much care about doing anything with it. Seems not even “A-Team” director Carnahan, said to have been hired for the reboot as recently as a week ago, could convince the studio to push forward – he wouldn’t have had enough time to get it going by October, anyway. Here’s hoping Marvel and Disney give Carnahan’s version of “Daredevil” a look-in at the properties new home.
