We reported last week that the Netflix Defenders shows – Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Iron Fist, Luke Cage, Punisher and The Defenders – had been brought officially into the MCU fold (here).
Up until this point these shows – although they started out as canon – were not considered part of the official ‘sacred timeline’ of the MCU and were, instead, part of the wider Marvel Multiverse that featured everything else that had the Marvel name on it.
However, this is no longer the case and, as a fan of all these shows, I think this is a very positive thing for the MCU.
Multiverse no more! Looks like the Netflix Marvel shows are officially MCU now
So, how did this happen? After all, in November last year, an official timeline book was released with a foreword by MCU boss Kevin Feige that made it clear that The Defenders were not ‘sacred timeline’ and here we are, a couple of months later realising we need to by this book again in the revised edition.
It all started in June last year when the then-filming Disney+ series was halted during production around the same time as the writers’ strike. When the footage was reviewed in-house at Marvel/Disney, the decision was made to go back to the drawing board and restart as what they had wasn’t good enough; after all, Daredevil is a major Marvel character.
So Marvel let go of writers Chris Ord and Matt Corman along with all the directors and secondary writers and are now looking for a new team to fulfil all those roles, giving Charlie Cox’s Daredevil and Vincent D’Onofrio’s Kingpin the standalone series they deserve having already returned to the MCU in Spider-man: No Way Home, She-Hulk, Hawkeye and now Echo.
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Moving forward, Marvel are planning on leaving their – let’s be honest – lackluster TV shows behind and will now put in plan showrunners and bibles for each show, meaning they’ll all feed into the greater story, while giving them all a unique flavour that can be enjoyed without knowing everything and won’t sit at odds with each other, honestly, the fact that this wasn’t happening this far is mind-blowing.
But how did this all bring the Netflix shows back home to the MCU? Well, according to Kingpin himself, Vincent D’Onofrio, they saw the restarting of Born Again as an opportunity to rethink their place in the bigger story: “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,'” says D’Onofrio.
“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.”
He also confirmed that Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, who worked on Moon Knight and Loki and have their own amazing cinematic universe going outside the confines of Marvel, will be working on the series too: “I’m a huge fan of those guys, and I talk to them all the time now,” says D’Onofrio shares, “when I heard that [they were joining Born Again], I was like, ‘OK, not only are we switching things up, but the 
bosses are doing the right thing for us.’ They’ve given us their hottest talent, and that’s pretty cool. So the first thing I did was thank them. I thanked Kevin [Feige] for doing that and sticking with Charlie [Cox] and I. It’s a pretty amazing thing.”
On top of this, as well as Cox and D’Onofrio’s return, I’m hearing that Deborah Ann Woll and Elden Henson will also return as Karen and Foggy, both left, in the new series, further cementing it as part of the MCU. We’re also hearing that Daredevil season 3 villain Bullseye will see his story continued in Born Again and it’s likely that it will once again be Wilson Bethal playing the role. all this is awesome and will be very welcome if it all turns out to be true.
So, are you excited for Daredevil: Born Again? Are you loving that these characters are back in the MCU? Let me know all your thoughts, guys…
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Sources: The Insneider, THR, THR,
Marc
Marc is a self-confessed nerd. Ever since seeing Star Wars for the first time around 1979 he’s been an unapologetic fan of the Wars and still believes, with Clone Wars and now Underworld, we are yet to see the best Star Wars. He’s a dad of two who now doesn’t have the time (or money) to collect the amount of toys, comics, movies and books he once did, much to the relief of his long-suffering wife. In the real world he’s a graphic designer. He started Following the Nerd because he was tired of searching a million sites every day for all the best news that he loves and decided to create one place where you can go to get the whole lot. Secretly he longs to be sitting in the cockpit of his YT-1300 Corellian Transport ship with his co-pilot Chewie, roaming the universe, waiting for his next big adventure, but feels just at home watching cartoons with his kids….
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