Daredevil Ends After Season 3 — Full Breakdown & Transcript

[00:00] Daredevil Born Again is done after Season 3, but is it being replaced by a yearling that the Lova Spy series is both pay so of in deterrent size? Welcome back to the Rockstars, I'm Eric Voss, and what the f*** is happening with Marvel Television?

[00:14] The Hollywood Reporter is reporting that Daredevil Born Again is ending after Season 3 in 2027, but that 3 to 5 new Marvel Disney Plus series are in development, one of which being a mysterious spy thriller codenamed Zodiac.

[00:26] I'm going to explain what big potato I think this really is, and the future of Daredevil in the MCU, and in general, what the fuck is happening? And I'm still a believer in the Marvel Disney Plus experiment. I am as excited for Vision Quest as I am for Doomsday, which is why I'm wearing this Vision Zersert that you can get exclusively at our merch store, nerdriot.shop,

[00:45] and wear along with us as we bring back Inside Marvel to do our Vision Quest after show starting in October. We love it when our supporters wear our shirts out in the wild and post selfies and tag us like these great people. So if you already have the Vision shirt, you guys are the best. Thank you.

[00:58] Okay, on Tuesday, The Hollywood Reporter published this exclusive update by Boris Kitt and Rick Porter. Daredevil Born Again to end with Season 3 exclusive. Showrunner Dario Scardapani, who headed up the Marvel show's second season, is no longer working on the series.

[01:11] The Man Without Beard is heading into one last battle. The forthcoming third season of Daredevil Born Again will be its last, sources tell The Hollywood Reporter. The decision comes about two months after the Marvel Studios show's third season wrapped filming. The move also comes as Marvel has quietly parted ways with showrunner Dario Scardapani,

[01:26] whose contract was up and was not renewed. The parting of ways is eyebrow-raising as it means that Scardapani is exiting the show in the middle of post-production. It's unclear who will see the show through to completion. One source said post-production is in the final stages.

[01:39] Marvel had no comment. The series has focused on criminal kingpin Wilson Fisk, Vincent D'Onofrio, becoming mayor of New York, and then targeting Daredevil and other vigilante Thor in its way. Season 2, which ran in the spring, ended with Matt Murdock, a.k.a. Daredevil Charlie Cox, being sent to prison.

[01:53] General Born Again has had a somewhat rocky run since Disney Plus revived the series, which initially ran for three seasons on Netflix from 2015 to 2018. Born Again was greenlit in July 2022 for an 18-episode season, with Matt Corman and Chris Ord as head writers.

[02:06] Production stopped during the 2023 strikes, at which time Marvel decided to do a creative reset. Corman and Ord, who had aimed for a more episodic structure and less dark tone than the Netflix series had, were Let Go and Scardapani, a writer and executive producer

[02:19] of Marvel's Punisher series that Netflix came aboard as showrunner. Justin Vincent and Aaron Moorhead of Loki and Moon Knight also joined the series as directors and executive producers. The initial order was also split into two seasons and ended up as 17 episodes, 9 for season 1 and 8 for season 2.

[02:33] Marvel Television has been slowly staking off the number of shows it produces for Disney+, its latest, Vision Quest, the final installment in the WandaVision trilogy, and starring Paul Bettany, is due to debut in October. The final season of Daredevil Born Again is due to come out in 2027,

[02:45] and nothing is seemingly on the books after that. Disney Plus also unrenewed Wonder Man after initially picking up a second season. However, the company continually has three to five live action shows in development and sources say it just greenlit a spy thriller referred to as Zodiac

[02:59] and is unclear to what the title refers, but... And then the article proceeds to include some guesses. I assume they got by just Googling Zodiac and Marvel. I really don't think that's what it is. Anyway, thanks so much to Boris and Riggs for their great reporting, as always.

[03:12] And this comes as a surprise to many of us that Marvel Television and Disney Plus would be ending Daredevil Born Again after this upcoming season. After there were reports of a fourth season being stopped greenlit and an idea for the season being formed and even a writer's room being put together.

[03:25] But as this article points out, this is also what happened to Wonder Man, a show that was officially renewed for a second season and then canceled. The upcoming third and now final season of Daredevil Born Again, we expect to stream on Disney Plus this spring. But it's not clear how or where that show will take place,

[03:39] if it's going to be coming out after Avengers 2, a movie that we expect to blow up everything in the MCU and form what's known as Battleworld. It kind of seems like Season 3 will just be completely independent of what's happening on the movie side of the continuity,

[03:51] or it could just take place before Avengers Tuesday happens. But based on set photos and rumors and the way Season 2 ended, we've been expecting Season 3 to be a true Defenders reunion and street-level crossover. Kristen Redder's Jessica Jones, Mike Coulter's Luke Cage, Finn Jones' Iron Fist, Danny Rand,

[04:05] and even L Young Elektra Nachios are all confirmed to appear And don be surprised if Rosario Dawson Claire Temple also appears She shot a scene for Spider Brand New Day and she going to get this question a lot on the press circuit for Ahsoka Season 2 in January

[04:17] We must also acknowledge the numerical reality of this series. While Daredevil Born Again Season 2 in 2026 earned the most streaming minutes of any other Disney Plus original series this year, according to Illuminate, which tracks all of this data, it also didn't have that much competition.

[04:30] With only Wonder Man and X-Men 97 Season 2, and no live-action Star Wars shows this year, and Percy Jackson Season 3 is coming in November, and it's probably going to match it, if not surpass it, on Disney+. But, troublingly, in the first five weeks of the second season of Daredevil Morning in Season 2,

[04:44] Luminate reported that Daredevil Morning had a 46% drop in viewership from Season 1 to Season 2. When you talk to tech executives who are in charge of streaming platforms, trajectory is really the most important thing they look at.

[04:56] And for any of you arguing that 46% number, Luminate aren't really the experts here. I know there are some people out there saying, well, there were some weeks where two episodes came out at the same time. and there were more actual minutes of episodes year over year. Nope, that's not true.

[05:08] They actually counted the same number of episodes year over year, and there was an objective confirmed 46% drop. And that drop was despite many viewers of the series believing the show had improved in quality from the first season, fixing that disjointed feel when the first season had to reshoot

[05:22] and reconfigure episodes from the previous version of the show. Season 2 did have some high watermarks. Bullseye creatively slaughtering ADTM goons such as Billy Joel's New York State of Mind in episode 204 was truly one of the best sequences ever in the Marvel Disney Plus era.

[05:35] But despite moments like this, the word of mouth just was not strong enough week over week to get all returning viewers to tune back in, let alone grow the viewership. Daredevil Born Again, despite its improvements, still gave a lot of airtime to the new characters,

[05:47] like Artie Fruchon's Buck Cashman and Michael Gandolfini's Daniel Blake, a storyline that ended by abruptly killing off a character in post-production, changing what was shot on the day, and even recontextualizing Fruchon's acting in the edit in a way that I think if this were any other streaming show,

[06:01] I don't think social media would have let them get away with. Speaking only anecdotally, I think many of our viewers just didn't have the bandwidth to watch multiple violent superhero streaming shows all at once in a week, and many instead gave their attention to the final season of The Boys or perhaps Invincible.

[06:15] Now, sure, viewers are not monolithic like that, and many of them are able to watch multiple shows at once, but I think it's clear that the spring saturation just had some impact and it didn't help. Still, with a Defenders crossover coming in season three,

[06:27] and the impact of Matt Murdock now being a publicly outed vigilante, I've been really excited for season three, or even a new season of Jessica Jones. I think those might still be on the table based on how viewers respond to this final season in 2027.

[06:39] The real issue is that the stars of this Disney Plus series, Charlie Cox and Vincent D'Onofrio, really did sign on for three seasons. Originally, the show was reworked from the 18th episode season announced in 2022 down to two shorter seasons after the 2023 creative retooling,

[06:53] with enough success from season one to justify season two and season three. But what we are seeing now is all of Marvel television is currently facing a strategy shift, or perhaps just a locking in of strategy, under Disney's new leadership of CEO Josh DiMauro, CCO Dana Walden,

[07:08] Adam Smith, who's the head of Disney Direct-to-Consumer, meaning all digital platforms like Disney Plus and Hulu, and Brad Winterbaum, the exec at Marvel, who reports to Kevin Feige. Brad oversees all of Marvel's streaming and various other verticals.

[07:20] Winterbaum has always been kind of the keeper of the lore at Marvel. Brad, we know you watch our videos. Come on the show. We'll be fair, I promise. And Brad's going to be at New York Comic Con in a few weeks, giving us a fuller update on their plans. But in the past, he's indicated no end in sight for all Marvel-animated shows, including X-Men 97, your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man,

[07:37] and we are pretty sure a second season, at least, of Marvel Zombies. But live-action Marvel shows are at this crossroads. When Wonder Man was canceled in August, Collider reported a general scaleback for Marvel Television, perhaps even a retreat from the streaming business, which the Puck newsletter refuted.

[07:52] Frosty and Collider is now doing some told you so-ings But in the Hollywood Reporter article While reporting the cancellation of Daredevil They did lead two open routes One, Daredevil and its adjacent characters Probably will still have a future in the MCU

[08:05] And three to five other Marvel live action shows Are in development instead That doesn't sound like a scale back or a retreat to me Now it may just be some bullshit That the Hollywood Reporter's Marvel source told them So that it doesn look like everything on fire right now I mean this could just be another example of some PR strategy that Jeff wrote down brilliantly in our last What the Fuck is Happening video Specifically this would be the same week when GQ got a very unflattering quote

[08:28] about Kevin Feige from Mahershala Ali. Kevin, he said it was the biggest failure of his career, and I agree. The quote was, I feel like a giant loser and failure for not getting off the ground. I agree with him. I agree with him, 100%.

[08:40] We should acknowledge that three to five shows always being in development doesn't really mean anything. Sure, we have 10 movies in development at new rock star studios. Vincent Washington is in talks to appear as Mephisto. See, it's that easy.

[08:52] But let's talk about what probably will be Daredevil's future in the MCU. If you love Charlie Cox's Daredevil and you really wanted to see a fourth and fifth season of this show and other spin-offs, especially to see the man with no fear move on beyond Kingpin as a villain,

[09:06] I'm sorry, this news probably really sucks for you. You can take some solace in the fact that after 47 episodes from three seasons and a crossover season on Netflix, and 25 episodes from three seasons on Disney+, and appearances in She-Hulk, Spider-Man No Way Home, and Echo,

[09:20] Charlie Cox as Matt Murdock has had more screen time than literally every other live-action Marvel character played by the same actor in our lifetimes. By the end of Daredevil Morning in Season 3, it's going to be close to 25 hours of screen time in total.

[09:33] That's four times more than Robert Downey Jr.'s six hours of screen time as Tony Stark. For reference, the next highest after Daredevil is Clark Gregg's Phil Coulson, Chris has nearly 18 hours of screen time from his MCU film appearances and seven seasons of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

[09:48] But the truth is, if there are street-level stories in the MCU, there's always a future for Daredevil. Justin Daniel Cretton just signed an overall deal with Sony, and he is confirmed to return to direct a fifth Tom Holland Spider-Man movie,

[10:00] probably coming to theaters in summer 2029. The co-writer of the Spider-Man movies, Chris McKenna, who's also working on Avengers Doomsday and Secret Wars, just shared a dropped storyline for Brand New Day that would have reunited Peter Parker with Matt Murdock.

[10:12] They love Charlie Cox, and if there is an audience who demands it, there's always room for a proper Daredevil movie or a special presentation. I can't tell you everything I know, but I'm confident that season three will not be the last we see of Charlie Cox as Daredevil in the MCU.

[10:26] Trust me, the studio sees the character as really the easiest character to plug in anywhere. The real reason why these streaming series are harder to just keep going forever is that if the same show gets renewed season after season,

[10:38] the same show with the same title, the budgets start to balloon year after year as returning actors and writers all expect bumps in pay and credit. Now, I believe that Disney has enough money to pay the creatives to do their work, but I also know that we exist in a late-stage capitalist economy.

[10:52] It's not like this just happens. And if there's not a huge season-over-season growth in audience or specific value-added advertising money or a prestige award strategy or evidence that most subscribers on this platform subscribe specifically for this title and this title alone,

[11:07] it's hard for these streamers to financially justify continuing the series beyond two or three seasons. That's just the reality. It's why many of us hate the streaming era. But Dario Scardapani departing the series before post-production finished signals to us that he was not happy with this decision.

[11:22] I can't blame him. It seemed like he had plans to arrange Season 3 to set up Season 4, and he did not want to be part of any reconfiguration in the editing room to conclude the series with Season 3. Maybe season three was going to end with a big cliffhanger as these characters look up at the sky and see the incursions and transition to the battle world that we were going to see between Doomsday and Secret Wars.

[11:40] But if Daredevil is now less central to Marvel's Disney Plus strategy, and potentially he's a character who can either make peripheral cameos or get promoted to the Avengers roster in MCU films, which I think is what's going to happen, what is really Marvel's strategy for these streaming shows?

[11:55] What are these three to five shows? And what is this spy thriller codenamed Zodiac? Well, when we hear spy or espionage, many of us think Nick Fury. But after Secret Invasion, I don't know if Disney Plus is going to bet their full future on the 77-year-old Samuel L. Jackson as the star of it.

[12:10] But he's still got some spring in his step, and I do think we're going to see him as a mentor cameo in a Yelena Belova spy series. A series where she might even team up again with Haley Steinfeld's Kate Bishop, along with former Thunderbolts.

[12:23] Yeah those are some small or maybe even big potatoes I would subscribe to Disney Plus for I really do think Florence Pugh Yelena Belova is a huge part of Marvel future strategy both in films and television The studio feels confident by the reception to Yelena appearance in Spider Brand New Day

[12:38] and how she seamlessly integrated with Spider-Man and gave us the terminology of big potatoes versus small potatoes that I think they're going to double down on. Specifically, in that same interview where Chris McKenna revealed the rejected storyline of Peter Parker and Matt Murdock for Brand New Day,

[12:51] he revealed that one of the first things that was locked down in the script was this Yelena Belova cameo in Russian Bathhouse. That was so important to Marvel Studios that that was like one of the first things they locked down for this movie as it was all coming together in development.

[13:03] Florence Pugh represents the kind of huge A-lister star that many streamers try to build their subscriber-driving vehicles around and is also a proper Avenger known from MCU films and an actor who isn't afraid of streaming roles like some other actors are.

[13:16] The reality is a lot of major actors in this industry don't want to spend their time doing streaming projects because not all streamers are in all countries around the world. So if you're an A-lister, you'd rather sign on to do a Disney movie or Warner Brothers or Paramount or Universal movie

[13:29] than you will doing a Disney Plus series when Disney Plus literally is not in all countries around the world. Florence Pugh doesn't have a problem with that. They're going to throw a lot of money at Florence Pugh, and I think they're going to build this Zodiac series around her. I think Zodiac is going to be the name of the spy organization, like Spectre, that Yelena and whoever else,

[13:45] maybe Kate Bishop, maybe Bucky if he's still alive, or John Walker and Alexei if they're still alive, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus returning as Val. all of these actors are as familiar to streaming platforms as they are to films.

[13:57] And I think it's the kind of cast that this Marvel exec feel can embody a proper Marvel spy thriller that captures what we loved about Thunderbolt and Hawkeye. Now, for those other shows in development, I'm just hoping Marvel Television does companion series to X-Men and the Mutant Saga,

[14:10] like let's have an eight-episode Wolverine series that our colleague Koi Jandro, related to our recent collaboration with the Escape Pod, based as an anthology series that would follow Wolverine fighting a niche war in history. Let's have a proper children's crusade type story,

[14:24] teeing up Joe Locke's Billy and Ruri Malika's Tommy on a quest to find their mother Wanda. Let's introduce Magneto in a limited series. While shifting away from a fourth season of Daredevil might feel like a scale back, I'm just also too cynical to think that the Walt Disney Company,

[14:38] after promoting a bunch of tech-minded executives to run the company, would retreat from streaming when it comes to their most valuable IP of Marvel. They're going to exploit the most popular Marvel characters and storylines to enrich their brand with as many screens as possible.

[14:52] And that is what the fuck is happening with Marvel Television. Comment down below with your thoughts, and a special thanks to one of our In Our Underground subscribers, Ricardo Martinez, for supporting us at the executive producer level. You can get all of our exclusive bonus content

[15:04] by clicking the link in the description below or going to inourunderground.supercast.com. Actually, our recent Monday Mailbag episode included an interesting tidbit about an odd link between Resident Evil and Avengers Doomsday. Take a listen.

[15:16] So if you go through Resident Evil this week, you'll see Constantine Films as a producer credited at the beginning. This is a German-based movie studio that was interviewed recently on the Town podcast,

[15:33] but they are also going to be on the opening credits for Avengers Doomsday and every Fantastic Four movie because they bought the film distribution rights to Fantastic Four in the 1980s. So when Roger Corman did his version of Fantastic Four in 1994,

[15:48] he did it through them. And then they also have the rights to the Resident Evil games. So every Resident Evil movie and every Fantastic Four movie or every movie that has a Fantastic Four character like Doctor Doom

[16:02] has to go through them. And they get special carve-out deals for both Avengers Doomsday and Avengers Secret Wars. You can get that full episode by clicking the link in the description. Big thanks to Studio Tech, Brian Kim, New Rock Stars editors Joshua Stephen Heard and Abby Friel,

[16:16] and all of our supporting editors for their work on this video. Follow me at D.W. Ross and hit the subscribe button. Thanks for watching, and I'll see you next time. Bye.