At this point, Marvel Studios' Daredevil: Born Again shouldn't be a TV show - it should be a movie

It’s a tumultuous time for Daredevil fans. After a filing with the US Copyright Office revealed that Daredevil: Born Again had been delayed by at least a year, reports have emerged that Marvel Studios has released the show’s head writers as it prepares to change both the series’ future as well as how the company handles its sprawling mass of television shows in general.

All this is happening as production is still delayed by the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strikes, meaning that we might not get to see Charlie Cox back as Matt Murdock on our TV screens for even longer, but this latest development has us wondering if we really need another Daredevil TV show at all.

That isn’t to say that we don’t want more Daredevil. Cox’s take on the character has been phenomenal and Vincent D’Onofrio captures the barely constrained malice of Kingpin perfectly. Our issue isn’t with bringing the character into the MCU – rather, we’d like to argue the case that all this time and money would be better spent on making Daredevil: Born Again into a film instead.

When the Netflix series first aired in 2015, fans had only seen the character as a cameo in various Marvel animated properties and the poorly received 2003 Daredevil film. That made a Daredevil series the best way to bring him into the MCU – lower risk for Marvel as they had shunted the character off to a streaming service if it didn’t go over well while Netflix got a taste of the MCU pie in the wake of the first Avengers film making approximately all the money.

Today, the situation is largely reversed. Cox’s Daredevil is the definitive version of the character in pop culture, which makes trying to do a soft reboot – which is how Daredevil: Born Again has been described – confusing for fans who largely know the character from the Netflix series. However, making the project into a film offers the creative team more freedom to distance themselves from what has come before. A new Daredevil movie would serve as something of a palette cleanser for fans, closing the door on the previous series and opening up new possibilities for The Man Without Fear.

There is also the continual and inconvenient passage of time that causes issues. By the time Daredevil: Born Again would reportedly air in January 2025, it will be ten years since the previous series debuted on Netflix. There is only so long that Marvel will be able to keep Cox and D’Onofrio in their roles without giving them their own project. At this point, it will likely be quicker to make the current Disney+ series a film with the hope that it will generate enough interest in a future series once Marvel has a better vision for their TV offerings.

There are, of course, arguments for keeping Daredevil in the familiar format of television rather than making the jump to cinema. The Netflix show completely reinvigorated the character for modern audiences so there is a risk in making such a big change. The procedural law show format that has been reportedly used for Born Again doesn’t work as well for theatrical releases, which need less downtime and higher stakes. However, as time continues to tick on we see more reasons to make the change than to stay the course.

With Marvel unsure how to proceed with its television slate and with the delay to the show's premiere likely to become even longer than what has been reported, it is time for Daredevil to make his triumphant return to the big screen.

Wondering about the future of the MCU in the wake of the Daredevil: Born Again shake-up? We have every upcoming Marvel project and their announced release date in one convenient place for you to read.