Recent years have seen a nearly non-stop procession of Marvel heroes making their way onto screens, but few have been widely celebrated and universally adored as Charlie Cox’s take on Daredevil.

After years of speculation, fans rejoiced when Cox made his official MCU debut in 2021’s Spider-Man: No Way Home, while his former Netflix series co-star Vincent D’Onofrio reprised his role as Wilson Fisk in Hawkeye. Since then, both characters have popped up in Echo and She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, but now the time has finally come for Matt Murdock and Kingpin to come face-to-face once more in Daredevil: Born Again.

Ahead of the triumphant return of Marvel’s Man Without Fear on Disney+, we caught up with the new series showrunner Dario Scardapane, Marvel executive of production and development Sana Amanat, and episode directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead to talk all things Daredevil: Born Again.

“We have this great treasure,” Amanat says of inheriting the legacy of not only the original Netflix series, but the entire history of Daredevil that began with the character created by Stan Lee and artist Bill Everett in 1964.

Daredevil/Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) in ‘Daredevil: Born Again’. Photo by Giovanni Rufino

“We wanted to pay tribute to that,” she explains. “But now we have new filmmakers and new creators like Dario and Justin and Aaron, and [directors] David Boyd and Jeffrey Nachmanoff, and our DP Hillary Spera, just a great amount of people who are giving us a new perspective that takes Daredevil into a whole new territory, which I think is so thrilling and so beautiful.”

And if anyone should be aware of the legacy of the original Netflix series and the world of The Defenders it helped to spawn, it would be the new series showrunner. Having previously produced and written for Netflix’s Punisher series, Dario Scardapane is already well acquainted with the likes of Jon Bernthal’s Frank Castle and Deborah Ann Woll’s Karen Page, and now he finally gets a chance to put his hand to one of his personal favourite Marvel characters.

“I first discovered Daredevil through a Frank Miller comic in 1985 at a comic bookstore near where I went to college,” Scardapane explains. “I can honestly say I would not be sitting here doing what I do if it wasn’t for Frank.”

While Lee and Everett may have been the ones to create Matt Murdock in the ‘60s, it was certainly Miller’s tenure in the 1980s that was responsible for turning him into the noir character that modern audiences are more familiar with. Widely regarded as the godfather of the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen, the Daredevil: Born Again showrunner also reveals that Miller himself visited the set during production.

Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll), Daredevil/Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) and Foggy Nelson (Elden Henson) in ‘Daredevil: Born Again’. Photo by Giovanni Rufino

“It was the best,” Scardapane beams. “So, on our final day of shooting Season 1, we had a pretty amazing gag that was happening which you’ll see when you see the season finale. And it was 3:00 in the morning, and we had three key players in the universe on set and Frank came to set, and he and I got to sit together at the monitors and talk about Raymond Chandler and film noir and the entire crew came up.”

Comic fans will be aware that this new series, which serves as a direct continuation of the original Netflix show, borrows its title from one of Miller’s best known story arcs.

“This is not an adaptation of Born Again,” Amanat explains. “That was done in Season 3 of the old show, but it definitely has thematic tie-ins, and it definitely feels like Born Again.”

Scardapane elaborates: “The title is kind of a reference to the classic Daredevil journey of rebuilding after massive loss. So unlike the Born Again storyline which was Season 3, this has echoes of that.”

The enormity of following in the footsteps of those responsible for the original Daredevil series is also something that is not lost on episode directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead. Perhaps best known for their independent horror outings, the filmmaking duo first cut their Marvel teeth on 2022’s Moon Knight, before later coming the lead directors on Loki Season 2.

Daredevil/Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) and Kingpin/Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio) in ‘Daredevil: Born Again’. Photo by Giovanni Rufino

“A lot of people put their heart and souls into that show,” Moorhead explains. “[They] made something really exceptional… it’s scary. We want to get it right, and also, it’s a gigantic honour to get to do it, because how often do you get to participate in something that you already know has achieved greatness?”

“Yeah, it’s one of our great myths,” Benson adds. “A great modern myth that we get to just tack a little tiny bit onto the top of.”

Of course, we can’t talk about the original Daredevil without paying due homage to the amazing fight sequences that helped make the show so successful. Thankfully, the Born Again team knew exactly who to call when it came time to put their own fight sequences together.

“What does our opener and the hallway sequence [in Daredevil Season 1] have in common? Phil Silvera,” Scardapane says, referencing the stunt coordinator responsible for crafting some of the most exciting fight sequences ever captured on camera.

“I’ve been a big fan of Phil’s for a really long time and wanted to work with him for a really long time,” he continues. “That was one of my first phone calls like, ‘Hey Phil. You wanna come back and outdo yourself?’ And he showed up with a mission.

“I would also think if you liked the stuff from the earlier show and if you liked that type of action, Phil does something in Episode 6 that is next level beyond.”

With Matt Murdock ready to resume his vigilante crusade, and plans for Season 2 already set in motion, we can’t wait to see what Scardapane and his team have in store for audiences moving forward.

Daredevil: Born Again‘s two-episode premiere is streaming now on Disney+, with new episodes releasing weekly.