MOVIE HYPE SA: DAREDEVIL (Update, Its Going back to Marvel)

Thursday, August 16, 2012

DAREDEVIL (Update, Its Going back to Marvel)

DAREDEVIL

Director Joe Carnahan (The Grey, the A-Team) was the latest name to be linked with the Daredevil reboot film, that Fox WAS trying to get off the ground.

DareDevil Frank Miller's comic

The director was tremendously enthusiastic about directing the film, and he went to Fox to pitch his idea for the film. The director made a sizzle reel (Which you can check out down below), to show the studio his vision for the project, the style and direction he would take on it.

Carnahan tweeted some discouraging statements tonight about Daredevil: "Think my idea for a certain retro, red-suited, Serpico-styled superhero went up in smoke today kids. ... We shall see. Time is NOT on anyone's side."

We reported recently that Fox and Marvel might end up doing a trade with some of the characters. With Marvel allowing Fox to do the Daredevil reboot film, while they get the Silver Surfer and Galactus rights back.

That trade is definitely dead in the water, as Fox seem to be letting go of the Man without fear.

Deadline and Variety both report that Fox is going to let the Daredevil rights lapse and just focus on rebooting Fantastic Four (with Chronicle's Josh Trank) and making X-Men/Wolverine movies. Daredevil is the second character to revert back to Marvel since Disney bought the company (Punisher and Blade have already returned to the fold).

Joe Carnahan

Interestingly enough, Variety says Fox still holds the rights to Daredevil's love interest Elektra, who was in the 2003 Daredevil movie and got her own self-titled 2005 solo flick.

Speaking to The Radio Dan Show, here’s what Carnahan had to say about why he found appealing about Daredevil, and why Fox probably passed on his take:

“I was brought in pretty late in the game, and my take probably didn’t help matters since they had an existing script. But I just thought that if you were going to do it, this was the way to go.

This is the way that intrigued me… It was initially something I passed on because Christopher Nolan had done such a lovely job with Batman and unless you’re going to go after that trilogy, then that’s how you have to think. You can’t out-hurdle that, then what’s the point of trying? So it set the bar extraordinarily high, and I thought ‘Well, if we’re going to do this, let’s have a discussion about Hell’s Kitchen, and how it was really Hell’s Kitchen in the 70s,” so that got me really excited.

Daredevil

But as I mentioned, the clock ticking and this kind of October drop-dead date, it wasn’t tenable. And having gone down this road in the past when you’re trying to write something and shoot it at the same time is disastrous, and I think you’d need an adequate amount of time to put that script together in the right way. My brother [Matthew Michael Carnahan (The Kingdom)] was interested in writing it with me, so we’ll see.”

He also mentioned about why he wanted his Daredevil movie to take place in the 1970s.

“As I’m finishing my kind of reimagining of Death Wish, I think the 70s is figuring into my conscious and subconscious mind right now. I think it was the last time music and movies were just tremendous. We just cranked out some great stuff. I think that’s why the sizzle reel is able to be kind of abstract because people have such great fondness in their hearts for that decade, particularly the early part of that decade.

I’m excited; you know the idea of having Daredevil on top of a building somewhere with the Serpico marquee in the background was enough, that image was enough, for me to want to make the movie.”