The Big Picture
- The absorption of Marvel Television into Marvel Studios and Charlie Cox's appearance in Spider-Man: No Way Home offered hope for Daredevil's canon status in the MCU.
- The upcoming show Daredevil: Born Again raises more questions than answers about its canon status, as key characters are missing or recast.
- Despite previous uncertainty, producer Brad Winderbaum claims Daredevil is part of the MCU's Sacred Timeline, indicating the other Netflix Marvel shows are canon as well.
Producer Brad Winderbaum was inevitably going to get questions about Daredevil when promoting the new Marvel Studios show Echo, given that this vigilante superhero is a key part of this program's marketing. Specifically, Winderbaum was bound to get questions about whether or not the Netflix Daredevil show is actually part of the MCU's Sacred Timeline or not. It's a pertinent question now that Charlie Cox has joined the broader MCU as Daredevil and the new TV show Daredevil: Born Again is on the horizon. In a Screen Rant interview, Winderbaum notes that he and other Marvel Studios personnel have always had to dodge the question of whether or not the show was canon due to Marvel Television, not Marvel Studios, developing the Netflix shows.
However, in this interview, Winderbaum notes that he himself can claim that Daredevil is part of the Sacred Timeline. Presumably, this would also include the other Netflix Marvel shows, given that Cox’s Daredevil interacted with Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist in The Defenders. Granted, Winderbaum’s clarification that this is just he himself stating this (rather than declaring that it’s the official stance of Marvel Studios forever and ever) does offer an easy out if Kevin Feige ends up claiming that the initial Daredevil show isn’t canon down the road. Even with seemingly official clarity for Daredevil fans, there’s an asterisk involved. Devotees of this character have gotten used to this, though. After all, Daredevil’s always been on the fringes of actually being accepted into the larger MCU mythos.
Daredevil
TV-MASuperheroActionCrimeDramaA blind lawyer by day, vigilante by night. Matt Murdock fights the crime of New York as Daredevil.
- Release Date
- April 10, 2015
- Creator
- Drew Goddard
- Cast
- Charlie Cox , Deborah Ann Woll , Elden Henson , Vincent D'Onofrio , Jay Ali , Wilson Bethel , Joanne Whalley
- Seasons
- 3
The Early Signs of 'Daredevil' Getting Ingratiated Into the MCU
In November 2013, just a few months after the news that Marvel Television and Netflix would be collaborating on a slew of TV shows (including Daredevil), no less than Disney CEO Bob Iger openly confirmed that the various stars of these programs could eventually headline their own Marvel movies. This wasn't confirmation that Jessica Jones would be making a cameo appearance in Avengers: Age of Ultron, but it did indicate a path forward for these small-screen characters to rub shoulders with the big Marvel Cinematic Universe heavyweights. When Daredevil hit Netflix in April 2015, it was explicitly noted to inhabit the same universe as the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, a facet reflected by the show’s first season involving the aftermath of the New York City attack from The Avengers. So far, all seemed calm and clear in terms of where Daredevil lay in the larger MCU continuity.
However, five months after this show's debut, news broke that Marvel Studios would no longer be operated under Marvel Entertainment CEO Ike Perlmutter. Creative friction between Marvel Studios and Perlmutter had necessitated Disney stepping in and splitting the division responsible for the MCU movies away from the rest of Marvel. While great news for the folks in charge of then-upcoming Marvel movies, it did mean that Marvel Television and Marvel Studios were no longer under the same roof. Projects like Daredevil were now basically on another planet compared to the movies and corporate hostility made the idea of these characters crossing over unlikely. Though 2016 shows like Luke Cage Season 1 name-dropped MCU movie characters like Captain America, press comments about the possibility of productions like Daredevil being canon to the MCU grew increasingly dreary.
Charlie Cox's Daredevil Makes His MCU Debut
In the spring of 2018, it was confirmed that none of the Marvel/Netflix characters would be showing up in the big superhero bonanza Avengers: Infinity War, a deafeningly clear sign that productions like Daredevil were not considered canon to the MCU. However, the following year, when Marvel Television was absorbed into Marvel Studios, a new ray of hope emerged. With Marvel Studios now fully controlling the big and small screen incarnations of Marvel Comics characters, could Charlie Cox’s Daredevil finally become officially canon in the MCU? The answer to that question was a resounding yes when this figure showed up for a cameo in Spider-Man: No Way Home in December 2021, though this exciting appearance did come with complications. Namely, it still wasn’t clear if this was the same Matt Murdock/Daredevil fans had come to know and love.
It didn’t help that, even after Daredevil: Born Again was announced, there were mixed signals being sent out on whether or not this version of Daredevil was a new variant or a continuation of the Netflix incarnation of the character. Cox told Extra TV in September 2022 that Feige had explained the show Born Again to him as a “fresh start” for the character rather than just a fourth season of his original Daredevil show. However, the actor would clarify a month later to Entertainment Weekly, in response to his She-Hulk: Attorney at Law guest spot, that he was reprising his role as Daredevil from the original Netflix shows. There’s lots of uncertainty swirling around this character’s place in the MCU…and key aspects of Daredevil: Born Again don’t exactly offer further clarity.
'Daredevil: Born Again' Needs Foggy Nelson and Karen Page
Avocados at law, always!So Far, 'Daredevil: Born Again' Raises More Canon Questions Than Answers
So far, the cast assembled for Daredevil: Born Again indicates that this forthcoming Disney+ show is meant to be a fresh take on the Daredevil mythos, but it's also not clear if it's a fully-fledged reboot either. Key supporting characters from the original Daredevil show like Foggy Nelson and Karen Page are currently MIA from the program. Meanwhile, Vanessa Fisk, a key character of the original Daredevil program, has been recast, though even that development doesn't indicate that the initial Daredevil show has been discarded. After all, the major MCU movies recast roles between films (most notably Col. James Rhodes) all the time and there’s never any question about whether, say, Iron Man has been discarded from the continuity of the larger universe.
The creative upheaval on Born Again has also made it tricky to figure out what is and isn’t canon for this particular project. With the show in the middle of an overhaul, it’s possible that whatever future version of the production that ends up on Disney+ was once meant to have fewer or greater connections to the first Daredevil show. With so much uncertainty swirling around the first solo outing for Daredevil in the MCU, it’s a welcome sight to see Brad Winderbaum try and offer some concrete details about the original Netflix shows' status in the larger MCU mythos. Only time will tell if his comments are emblematic of Marvel Studios as a whole or just one producer going rogue and offering up his personal thoughts on where Daredevil lies in the Sacred Timeline.
It would be a happy ending to all the uncertainty surrounding Daredevil’s place in the MCU for Charlie Cox and company if it was officially welcomed into the continuity with open arms. Still, if everything that’s happened to this show since 2015 has taught Daredevil fans anything, it’s that anything can happen. Unfortunately, that “anything” also includes Daredevil’s place in the Sacred Timeline being revoked down the line. Only time will tell if this show has secured a permanent place in the general MCU mythology.
Daredevil is available to stream on Disney+ in the U.S.
