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Credit: NetflixThe Man Without Fear is back on television, but the journey has been nothing short of turbulent.
Marvel Studios first pulled back the curtain on Daredevil: Born Again at San Diego Comic-Con 2022, with Kevin Feige outlining an ambitious 18-episode order for Disney+. The road from that announcement to the show’s March 2025 debut proved far from straightforward. A sweeping creative overhaul reshaped the project, altering its tone, structure, and leadership before cameras rolled again.
Disney parted ways with original creators Matt Corman and Chris Ord, as well as much of the initial creative team. Dario Scardapane stepped in as showrunner, marking a strategic shift toward a more traditional television model at a time when Marvel Studios was reassessing its streaming pipeline. Brad Winderbaum, Marvel’s Head of Streaming, Television and Animation, previously indicated the studio would begin developing more projects than it ultimately produces, with showrunners guiding series from inception.
Directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, who previously worked on Moon Knight and Loki, became key figures in steering the revamped vision. Their involvement signaled a tonal recalibration, grounding the series more firmly within the Marvel Cinematic Universe while maintaining its street-level intensity.
The reset extended to the ensemble. Charlie Cox and Vincent D’Onofrio remained central as Matt Murdock and Wilson Fisk, joined once again by Elden Henson, Deborah Ann Woll, and Jon Bernthal reprising their roles as Foggy Nelson, Karen Page, and Frank Castle/The Punisher, respectively. The episode count was trimmed to nine for Season 1, with Season 2 slated to arrive later this year.
Another notable return was Ayelet Zurer, who was brought back as Vanessa Fisk after the creative shift–the role had been recast with Sandrine Holt (House of Cards) under the Corman and Ord version of the show. Now, Vincent D’Onofrio has spoken out about the recasting of his on-screen wife and what it meant to him and the project at large.
During an appearance at Rhode Island Comic-Con 2025, the Daredevil: Born Again star peeled back the curtain on one of the show’s most talked-about shakeups: the recasting of Vanessa Fisk. For the first time publicly, D’Onofrio addressed Marvel Studios’ decision to replace Ayelet Zurer, only to ultimately restore her to the role.
When Daredevil: Born Again first entered production in 2023, Marvel had tapped Sandrine Holt for the role of Vanessa Fisk. Holt, known for House of Cards and Mayor of Kingstown, filmed scenes under the original showrunners, Matt Corman and Chris Ord.
That creative team had envisioned something closer to a soft reset than a continuation. Outside of Cox and D’Onofrio, much of the original Netflix ensemble was sidelined. Deborah Ann Woll’s Karen Page was written out, and Elden Henson’s Foggy Nelson was reportedly killed off-screen.
“They had cast another wonderful actress as my wife, but she wasn’t Ayelet,” he said, per The Direct. For D’Onofrio, there was no gray area. “Ayelet is Vanessa, period. That’s it.”
When set photos surfaced in April 2024 showing Zurer back alongside D’Onofrio in New York, it signaled that something major had shifted behind the scenes.
Production had already been paused in May 2023 as Marvel Studios reassessed the show’s direction. Roughly 13 months after Holt’s casting became public, Zurer was officially brought back as part of a sweeping overhaul. The decision also restored much of the Netflix-era cast and recalibrated the tone closer to the original series.
While taking additional questions from fans, D’Onofrio shed light on the creative chaos happening behind the camera.
“The first season was a lot of work, man,” D’Onofrio said. “Charlie and I had to… At first, we were going in the wrong direction and we had to turn… We had to stop a train that was going, and that’s not a small thing. That’s like a huge thing.”
According to D’Onofrio, both he and Charlie Cox recognized early on that the show was drifting away from what made the original Netflix series resonate with audiences. What followed was an uphill effort to course-correct a production already in motion. He credited Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige for ultimately backing that shift:
“Thank God we’re working for a guy like Kevin Feige and the people, everybody that works under him. So, things were able to switch to back to the way we wanted it.”
When Deborah Ann Woll previously shared how painful it was not being asked back initially, D’Onofrio admitted he and Cox felt the same way. “It’s funny, when Deborah [Ann Woll] was just talking about being hurt, about not being invited back, Charlie and I were hurting for her. We were like, ‘Why is Deborah not here? Where is Foggy? We need our cast.”
With Daredevil now firmly reestablished in the MCU, speculation has intensified about big-screen crossovers. Cox already appeared in Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021), but Wilson Fisk’s cinematic status is far less clear.
“The only thing I know is not positive. It’s a very hard thing to do, for Marvel to use my character,” D’Onofrio told Josh Horowitz last year. “It’s a very hard thing to do because of ownership and stuff.”
“Right now, I’m only usable for television series,” he added. “Different kinds of series, whatever it is, but not even a one-off Fisk movie or anything like that, it’s all caught up in rights and stuff. I don’t know when that would work out, or if it ever would work out at all, actually.”
Addressing rumors about an appearance in Spider-Man: Brand New Day (2026) alongside Tom Holland, D’Onofrio later reiterated that he is barred from appearing in the film. “No. I think I’ll just wait until they have the rights to my character and they put me in one of those movies, and then I’ll figure it all out,” he said.
Long before Born Again, Marvel’s Daredevil debuted on Netflix in 2015 and ran through 2018, earning acclaim for its grounded storytelling and moral stakes. Cox’s portrayal of Murdock, a blind lawyer navigating justice by day and vigilantism by night, anchored a series set in Hell’s Kitchen that balanced legal drama with brutal action.
Developed by Drew Goddard and shepherded by showrunners Steven S. DeKnight, Doug Petrie, Marco Ramirez, and Erik Oleson, the show launched the Netflix corner of Marvel with Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, and The Defenders. Rosario Dawson’s Claire Temple, Élodie Yung’s Elektra, and Bernthal’s Frank Castle rounded out a cast that deepened its world.
Daredevil: Born Again Season 2 is set to premiere on March 24, 2026.
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