Fans ask Disney and Marvel to #SaveDaredevil now that the rights have reverted back from Netflix
Yesterday marked the two-year anniversary of when Netflix canceled Daredevil, and as we learned shortly after that news broke, the two-year anniversary means Disney and Marvel Studios can apparently now use Daredevil again. The original agreement between Disney and Netflix reportedly prevented any of its initial batch of Marvel characters—Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist, but not The Punisher—from “appearing in any non-Netflix series or film for at least two years after cancellation,” and that two years is now up for all of them but Jessica Jones. So what does that mean? Well, without looking at the original contracts (the “at least” thing seems annoyingly vague), it seems like Disney could better integrate Daredevil into the MCU in future Marvel Studios projects or even put together some kind of revival of the canceled Netflix show.
That’s exactly what a #ReleaseTheSnyderCut-style Twitter campaign is trying to accomplish, with #SaveDaredevil trending on the social media platform on Sunday as an organized group of fans shared their thoughts on why the series should get a chance to be—ahem—born again. (That’s a Daredevil reference.) Specifically, the campaign is to get Disney to bring back this specific version of the hero and his supporting characters, with star Charlie Cox getting referenced in the posts as often as the show itself. The campaign also seems to be vying for a Hulu revival rather than a Disney+ one, since Disney owns a majority stake in Hulu, but the streaming service did already pull a Netflix and jettison its own Marvel show last year (not counting Helstrom, which is barely a Marvel show).
Now, all of this would probably still depend on Disney and Netflix coming to some kind of agreement, since Netflix still has that “at least” window to play with (and there’s a chance it owns the Charlie Cox version of Matt Murdock anyway, potentially making this all a moot point). Also, if Disney wants to make a fourth season of Daredevil, it probably wouldn’t have even been allowed to consider moving forward with it until yesterday, which would mean no work has been done on it, which would mean that any chance of actually seeing a fourth season of Daredevil would be very far off.
That all being said, if this does happen, can we finally get away from the Frank Miller crap? Hit the story arc of Daredevil’s identity getting exposed and then him fighting it in court while wrestling with the fact that it’s true and he’s being a dick, but then maybe have him embrace the exposure and get into some of that Mark Waid swashbuckling fun. Then Wilson Bethel can come back as full-on comic book Bullseye and try to kill Karen Page and Foggy Nelson, causing Daredevil to buckle under the crushing weight of his Catholic guilt—because how dare he try to live his life without constantly feeling bad for his every decision—but then Foggy and Karen could help him save the day because they’re all such good friends. Then Spider-Man swings through in the background because now the show is explicitly connected to the MCU. This thing writes itself, Disney! Get your shit together and save Daredevil!