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Most fans of the Netflix Daredevil series can probably remember the first time they saw the famous "hallway fight" scene in the second episode of the show. Filmed in one continuous take, Matt Murdock takes on a group of goons in a hallway, popping in and out of view as the fight progresses from room to room. It's a brutal, thrilling fight that unfolds in real time, and helped propel audience interest in the show's debut season. Up until that point in time, there hadn't been a fight that visceral in a Marvel TV show or film. 

Now, Daredevil actor Charlie Cox has revealed why the Netflix show had to have such gritty action: they didn't have the budget for CGI. Speaking to actor Joe Locke for Variety, Cox said, "We didn’t have the same budget as Marvel Studios, so everything had to be practical. We didn’t have any CGI. And it’s bizarre, therefore, that one of the things the show has been beloved for is how authentic a lot of it feels — particularly the action."

The choreographed fight scenes of the Netflix Daredevil show felt like a warm callback to classic Hong Kong martial arts films, where the stars are martial artists, in addition to being actors. For American audiences, seeing choregraphed fight scenes filmed in one take is a rarity, and it helped differentiate the feel of Daredevil as a character over other Marvel superheroes at the time. Additionally, the practical, low-budget fight scenes fit in perfectly with the street-level scale of Daredevil. In contrast to characters like the Fantastic Four or the Avengers, Daredevil isn't a fantastical character. Most of the time, he's fighting ordinary people. 

Charlie Cox has reprised his role as Matt Murdock in the Disney+ show, Daredevil: Born Again. The budget for that show, we would imagine, is larger than it was for the Netflix show, as Born Again featured scenes where Daredevil swings across the buildings of Hell's Kitchen. To our eyes, it looks like Charlie Cox was able to do that with the help of CGI. The showrunner from season 1 of Netflix's Daredevil show, Steven DeKnight, said on Twitter that Matt Murdock never did this on the original show because they "didn’t have the money to do [it]. If we had, we would have." 

Both the original Daredevil series and Daredevil: Born Again are available on Disney+.

Consider this a meta post-credits scene for Marvel fans - the four key articles you need to read next to continue the thrills:

• How to watch the Marvel Cinematic Universe in release or chronological order
• The best Marvel Comics stories of all time
• All the MCU movies ranked from best to worst
• Our weekly Marvel insider's column, Marvel Matters