In the past week, it has come out that Twilight: Eclipse director David Slade would he helming a new movie for FOX based on the Marvel Comics character Daredevil. It would be the second movie based on the character, following the averagely-received 2003 movie starring Ben Affleck. (I’d prefer not to admit the Elektra movie even happened) As much as I welcome good comic book movies, and hope Slade would do a good job, what I’d like even more is a Daredevil TV series.
The idea has presented itself before – in fact, one of the late 1980’s Incredible Hulk TV-movies, The Trial of the Incredible Hulk, introduced Rex Smith as Matt Murdock/Daredevil, complete with a ready-made supporting cast that for whatever reason didn’t have the names Karen Page and Foggy Nelson. In a case of Not Getting It Right – although DD did have a similar look not too long ago – the TV Daredevil wore all black. The whole presentation was very 80’s.
But as far as Marvel concepts that could be affordable and look good for Marvel on television – you can’t do much better than Daredevil. Part legal drama, part superhero action, it’s like what would happen if the folks on Law & Order happened to be blind and took justice into their own hands. Even better, DD has a ready-made supporting cast – Foggy, Karen Page, Stick, Elektra, and others – as well as a rogue’s gallery that could really serve a TV series well and sustain several years’ worth of stories.
For those of you who don’t know, by the way – Daredevil is Matt Murdock, a man who was blinded by a radioactive chemical accident as a boy, who gained a sort of “radar sense” that amplifies his other senses. When he’s not stopping criminals in the courtroom, he’s patrolling Hell’s Kitchen in a red suit as a Man Without Fear. It’s really cool, trust me.
For whatever reason – perhaps movies truly do make more – FOX and Marvel seem to want to go the movie route for DD. But the character is such that I think with the right casting and the right creative voices, it could make for some really interesting television. Let David Slade take over the Wolverine project that Darren Aronofsky passed on, instead, or something. But since Marvel has a TV division headed up by Smallville and Heroes’ Jeph Loeb, this might be a better opportunity for a big TELEVISION hit.
If there’s demand, there will be more “Make This TV Show” columns here on KSiteTV in the future. And if you have ideas you’d like to submit for a future installment, send us an e-mail!
6 Comments
I like this idea alot actually, but why not make a movie then continue where the movie left off in the form of a series. That way they can get the origin stuff out of the way in a big 2 hour stretch
i would say yes to a daredevil series but i’m really looking forward to see what david does with this project. i think he is an amazing director, 30 days of night and twilight: eclipse had amazing direction and i hope the cinematographer for those films will be part of dd. i would love a weekly dd tv series but only when fox gives back the rights so that marvel can do it properly than an half-assed version like nbc’s wonder woman (adrianne is a perfect looking wonder woman but the plot looks bad.) as long as elektra is in it and that she is bad-ass, i’ll be happy.
Hopefully, Jeph Loeb will recognize the potential of television as a medium for the majority of these second- and third-tier properties instead of conceiving all of them as feature films. Heck, even just TV movies or mini-series would probably offer better adaptations and provide less risk overall.
Personally, I would still prefer a Moon Knight series, first and foremost, but I think Daredevil could do well episodically.
I couldn’t agree more. Such a great story to lend itself to a weekly series. Why wouldn’t that be an option? I ask myself. Marvel are full steam ahead with their movies and , I hate to say it, far superior in general to DC.
Conquer tv land marvel …… Even a blind man could see the potential. Yes I went there
I like the idea of a DD tv show but Marvel seems more focused on making movies. It’s probably so when they do a second Avengers movie they can introduce new members like DD into the film series or at least that’s what it looks like to me.
I’d rather see a Phantom series following up on the SciFi pilot.