In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Vincent D’Onofrio is revealing how the Marvel executives came together during the reshoots for Daredevil: Born Again and decided to make Netflix's Daredevil canon to the MCU.
The Echo television series certainly took some giant first steps in implying that the events of Netflix's Daredevil or something very similar occurred in the MCU but it seems that it wasn't until the reshoot for Born Again that the MCU brass decided to make it official.
"During our restart of all the creative on Daredevil: Born Again, all the creatives got together and said, ‘Look, this is how we’ve got to do it now. So we are for sure only speaking about it in terms of being directly connected to the original Daredevil, and that’s a great thing. It brings in a lot of cool stories and all the collateral story that happened in those original three seasons.”
It's interesting that D'Onofrio only makes mention of Netflix's Daredevil and not the other Defenders series - Jessica Jones, Luke Cage and Iron Fist. While the MCU has repeatedly made references to Netflix's Daredevil, the waters get a little more murky when concerning the other shows.
However, in later seasons, the other shows became integral to Netflix and it's hard to see how the MCU could bring back one and not the rest.
Also, all the Defenders series have been moved to the MCU timeline on Disney+ which is a move that some MCU fans are taking as an indication that those shows are now canon.
We'll caution that until more overt references are made to something other than Daredevil, fans shouldn't necessarily expect Mike Colter's Luke Cage or Krysten Ritter's Jessica Jones to start kicking in doors and tossing around bad guys. And it's hard to imagine Marvel bringing back Finn Jones' Danny Rand, in any capacity.
At this juncture, it seems the MCU is only interested in bringing back the more popular elements of the Netflix series, i.e. Jon Bernthal's Punisher, Elden Henson' Foggy and Deborah Ann Woll's Karen while leaving the more polarizing elements behind.
As D'Onofrio's interview continued, he revealed his excitement about returning to Kingpin's darker nature as opposed to the more eccentric depiction of the character in Hawkeye.
"Sydney Freeland, who’s the executive producer and one of the directors of Echo, wanted me to do Echo. In our first conversation, she explained to me the story of Echo and that Maya Lopez’s journey was going to lead to some dark stuff and a bit of violence. So I already knew that my character works best in that Daredevil kind of tone, and when Sydney told me about the special way she wanted to tell Maya Lopez’s story, I was like, “Great. I love it because I really do think that Kingpin works best in a darker tone.”
Prior to Echo's release, D'Onofrio stated that he felt Born Again was a brand new show, not connected to the Netflix iteration but we now see how quickly situations can change.
Currently, Born Again is without an exact release date but it's said to be part of Phase Five of the MCU, which ends on February 14, 2025, with Captain America: Brave New World. Phase Six kicks off on May 2, 2025, with Fantastic Four.