Back in 2003, Jennifer Lopez's then-boyfriend starred in the first cinematic outing for Daredevil, which included all the playground flirtations and Coolio subplots that fans have come to expect from The Man Without Fear. Fast forward past all the self-loathing, ill-conceived spinoffs, and the rise of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and it's about time for a reboot of Hell's Kitchen's favorite son. Something grittier...something darker. Something literally so dark, it's actually hard to make out on the screen.
Voila! Below, watch the first trailer for Netflix's upcoming Daredevil TV show, starring Brit Charlie Cox as blind lawyer/superhero Matt Murdoch. And in addition to being literally so dark that you may have to press your face to your computer/tablet/smartphone device to see what's going on at night in Hell's Kitchen, it also looks much bloodier and less cartoonish than the 2003 edition.
In an interview with Scratch the Surface podcast, Cox discussed what he felt was wrong with the 2003 film, and explained how the new adaptation will deal with Murdoch's blindness:
We had to adapt certain things for the purpose of story telling. Like for example, and I’m making this up so there are no spoilers here, there is a scene where I come into the room, and lets say there are guns all over the floor on one side of the room and drugs on the other side of the room. Im just making this up, I promise I’m just making this up. So lets say that’s the scene. I come into the room, and I [Daredevil] can pick up on those things, based on a combination of his senses, smell, gunpowder in the air, taste of cocaine in the air or whatever, he can sense those things. But you can’t tell that story on camera without having a camera move that goes to them. Daredevil wouldn’t need to look in that direction in order to sense those objects, but the camera needs to. So we had to come up with a way where he has to focus on things in order to kind of sense them, and by focusing he kind of cocks his head towards what it is he’s trying to get a sense of, trying to kind of create an image in his mind of what it is, so we can tell that story.
But it looks good! This critic may be a bit tired of the gritty-realistic-sour-Nolanesque mood which comic book movies have taken on over the last decade, but it feels like it may really work here. Maybe it's knowing that we'll have a full season to get to know Murdoch and all his super friends (Deborah Ann Woll as Karen Page! Rosario Dawson as Claire Temple! Vincent D’Onofrio as Wilson Fisk!)—as well as lots of time to roam Hell's Kitchen with other superheroes including Jessica Jones, Luke Cage and Iron Fist, who are also getting their own Netflix series (and eventually, all four heroes will team up for a Defenders miniseries).
All the new episodes of Daredevil will be released on April 10th. Until then, never forget how far we've come.
