Daredevil, at least the Netflix and Marvel combined production of Daredevil, has been quite the success for the comic publisher. However, there was time where Daredevil wasn’t as widely well-regarded in adaptation form. Prior to Charlie Cox, there was Ben Affleck and director Mark Steven Johnson adapted parts of popular Daredevil comics, and the film mostly tanked with the public writ large.
This was in the interim between the breakout X-Men, the first film of that franchise, and the later comicbook revolution in film. Johnson also directed the first Ghost Rider film. Though the Netlfix series has widely surpassed the film in fans’ eyes, Charie Cox and company actually “really, really like” the Ben Affleck-led Daredevil film, according to Comicbook.
“I actually really, really liked the film and thought Ben Affleck did a really good job. I think the film is tonally a bit confused [but] I actually really enjoyed it. I think that if you make Spider-Man, and I don’t know much about the other characters to be honest, but if you make Spider-man, for example, you can make a movie for kids and adults and it can have that kind of humor because I think it’s true to the characters for the most part. Daredevil needs to be on a platform like Netflix because the source material is so dark and so complicated and so sinister at times. I think what benefited us so much was that Netflix wanted to make the show with Marvel and we were able to embrace those darker tones.”
The new Daredevil’s thoughts on the subject mostly mirror what many reasonable reviewers have already opined and stated about the 2003 film in the past.
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Daredevil co-star Elden Henson backed the Ben Affleck Daredevil film as well. He explained that “…they were making these types of superhero things” at that time.
“Just so everyone knows out there – it’s not easy to make a movie. It’s really hard. No one sets out to make a bad movie or disappoint anybody. I think they were [just] making these types of superhero things in a much different way back then.”
It is unlikely that any of this will change fans’ minds at this point, but it hopefully helps those who worked on the 2003 film feel a little bit better about making one of the comicbook films that had a “failure to launch,” so to speak,” in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
[Images Via Marvel Entertainment/Netflix]
