Matt Murdock will finally get a second (or technically third, after the backdoor pilot in the eighties TV movie The Trial Of The Incredible Hulk) chance at on-screen success when Charlie Cox takes the role of the blind vigilante for the upcoming Netflix series. Prior to that Daredevil's name was muck thanks to the pretty crummy 2003 film starring a pre-Argo Ben Affleck, Jennifer Garner, and a bald Colin Farrell doing martial arts on a children's playground. The first film was supposed to set up a sequel which, ultimately, never materialised, and it looked like that might be it for the Man Without Fear. Then there were rumblings that, whilst they still held the rights to the lawyer by day, superhero by night 20th Century Fox were going to give it another try. Sony had rebooted Spider-Man after a handful of years and Marvel did the same with the Hulk, so why not? At first David Slade was in line for director (the guy who started off well with Hard Candy and tanked suddenly with The Twilight Saga: Eclipse) before giving A-Team helmer Joe Carnahan a shot. Carnahan put together a sizzle reel of animated comic panels and sequences from other films to give a sense of the more gritty, violent feel he wanted to give the film, making it a seventies-set noir instead of a colourful superhero flick. Which would've been so, so good.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
