Jon Bernthal Almost Walked Away From “Daredevil: Born Again” Disney+ Show
Following the return of Jon Bernthal as Frank Castle, aka “The Punisher” in the new Disney+ Original series, “Daredevil: Born Again”, during a recent interview with EW to promote the new show, Jon Bernthal, revealed details on his return as “The Punisher”, stating:
“It was like, Let’s see if this works. Let’s see if there’s a real openness and a hunger to let Frank be what Frank is, which is dark enough to have the courage and the boldness to turn your back on the audience and to make it difficult, to make it enormously psychologically complex and to steer away from any cuteness or humor and to really go full bore.”
The return of “The Punisher” isn’t going to be a one time thing, as the character will also be returning for the second season of “Daredevil: Born Again” and for an upcoming standlone “Special Presentation”, similar to “Werewolf By Night” and “Guardians Of The Galaxy: Holiday Special”.
It’s been over five years since Jon last played “The Punisher”, and he is looking forward to being able to push the character further:
“I feel like it’s opened the door to getting closer to the Frank Castle that I really, really want to portray.”
During the creation of “Daredevil: Born Again,” the show underwent a massive creative restructuring, with new creators and writers coming in halfway through production following a delay due to the writer’s and actor’s strikes.
One of the big changes was that “Daredevil: Born Again” was originally going to be set in the current MCU timeline, but the previous shows actually took place in an alternative multiverse. Instead, the creative decision was to incorporate the much-loved former Netflix shows, effectively making those former Netflix shows canon.
Jon explained how the original vision for the show was different and that he wasn’t happy with the direction it was going:
“Ultimately, I didn’t see it. I didn’t see the version of Frank, and what they wanted from Frank [didn’t] really make sense to me and I thought would not appeal to the fans and wouldn’t be congruent. It was not something I was really interested in doing. So we had to walk away.”
Following the new creative team being brought in, there was a more collaboration with Bernthal in developing the character.
“They really brought me into the conversation. We really got specific about where Frank is psychologically, where Frank’s at physically. Sometimes you have to be very, very clear with your intentions in this business. You can’t get confused with how much you love something, how much you love playing something, how much you want to do something. You got to make sure you’re serving it. You got to make sure you’re doing justice to the people that believe in it and doing justice to the iterations that have come before you.”
Roger’s Take: The initial creative decisions behind bringing back Daredevil and other characters from the “Defenders” shows do make you wonder what they were thinking. It seemed they wanted to cherry-pick the best bits from the “Defenders” shows but did not actually fully embrace them. Instead, they used the multiverse as a way of trying to convince themselves (and ultimately) the audience that it was the same but different.
Personally, I’m glad the creative team decided to stop, reset, and stop making things unnecessarily complicated. Just make “Daredevil: Born Again” a continuation, which also seemed to please the original actors, as both Charlie Cox and Vincent D’Onofrio also raised issues with the direction of the show. This resulted in a much darker and interesting show that fans can get invested in.
The first two seasons of “The Punisher”, along with the first four episodes of “Daredevil: Born Again” are available to stream on Disney+.
Are you looking forward to the return of “The Punisher”? Let me know on social media!
Roger Palmer
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