Despite being a separate show, Daredevil: Born Again Season 1 is viewed by many fans as the unofficial fourth season of Netflix‘s Daredevil series given the shared cast and crew. However, former Daredevil showrunner Erik Oleson recently revealed that the Netflix show’s scrapped fourth season would have been radically different from what is currently taking place on Born Again.
Netflix canceled Daredevil after three seasons in 2018 despite the story for a fourth season having already been broken. Following the cancellation, fans had to wait three years before seeing Charlie Cox’s Matt Murdock/Daredevil and Vincent D’Onofrio’s Wilson Fisk/Kingpin again, with both characters making their respective Marvel Cinematic Universe debuts in Spider-Man: No Way Home and Hawkeye.
A new Daredevil show was subsequently announced by Marvel Studios, titled Daredevil: Born Again. While not originally set to continue from the events of the Netflix iteration, a late 2023 creative overhaul ultimately resulted in the Netflix/Marvel shows being officially recognized as MCU canon. Born Again was then reworked to bring it closer to the tone of the Netflix Daredevil series, with further changes including bringing back original cast members like Deborah Ann Woll, Elden Henson, and Aylet Zurer, among others.
Daredevil Season 3 showrunner Erik Oleson recently addressed The Man Without Fear’s MCU comeback during a chat with The Wrap. “I’m very excited that the show came back at a different network. It’s so weird. As a showrunner, you’re kind of prepared for your show to be canceled. You’re not necessarily prepared for your studio [to be canceled]. It was a very bizarre thing,” he said, referencing the fate of the original Marvel Television division.
Daredevil Season 4 would have had a different villain than Muse
Since Daredevil: Born Again was originally separate from the Netflix series, the writers crafted a new story for the fan-favorite MCU superhero, with Muse and corrupt cops using the Punisher symbol chosen as the main antagonists of Season 1.
“The Season 4 I had planned was quite different,” Oleson explained. “It was a Typhoid Mary story. It was going to go into a different direction. And then I was going to circle back to the Bullseye storyline in Season 5. I was starting to plan out future seasons and what we would do, kind of a long arc. And then, of course, Netflix and Marvel broke up because Disney+ wanted Marvel.”
Both the original Daredevil series and Daredevil: Born Again are available to stream on Disney+.
