After years of abuse at hands of Fox, the rights to the character of Daredevil have reverted to Marvel Entertainment, clearing the way for a new Daredevil film in the Marvel film universe.
Fox, who recently held the rights, had until October 10, 2012 to put a Daredevil movie in production, or according to the original contract the rights would revert back to Marvel. After the financially successful but critically beaten 2003 film starring Ben Affleck, Fox had repeatedly shown its commitment to rebooting the character, ideally in a film without Jennifer Garner coming anywhere near the character of Elektra. As time went on though, Fox seemed to cool on the idea.
Director Joe Carnahan was the last person attached to the film, and went so far as to create a short sizzle reel (below) for his proposal, which would have taken the character back to the 1970s. Fox passed on that idea, but continued to negotiate with Marvel.
At an Iron Man 3 press conference, Kevin Feige, President of Marvel Studios, confirmed to Newsarama that the rights to Daredevil were officially back with Marvel.
With the rights to X-Men, Spider-Man, and others still tied up with other studios, Marvel was no doubt eager to get the Daredevil rights back. Daredevil is an A-list star, big enough to already merit one blockbuster movie. There is no reason to think that Marvel won’t push ahead with a Daredevil film, likely for its Phase Three that should begin with Edgar Wright’s Ant-Man in 2015. So far no other characters or films have been confirmed beyond that, so the timing seems ideal.
So with the ol’ horn head almost certainly coming back to the big screen in the next few years, who would you like to see star and direct? Sound off below!
