12 years before Charlie Cox’s Marvel hero got his debut, the 2003 Daredevil movie released to a more complicated reception, and the difference between the Man Without Fear’s on-screen reputation then and now makes the idea of an MCU movie seem all the more pertinent. Daredevil‘s initial three-season-long run from 2015 to 2018 cemented the series as one of the most well-regarded superhero releases of all time. This long-lasting reputation helped bring Charlie Cox’s Daredevil back and officially into the MCU via his cameo in Spider-Man: No Way Home, building a new path forward.
While it initially seemed as though only Cox’s hero was coming over from the Defenders show timeline, later releases confirmed Vincent D’Onofrio’s Kingpin was also part of the universe, shortly before Daredevil: Born Again cemented the idea that the entire of the Daredevil series and cast were to be considered part of the MCU timeline. This was naturally a major revelation given the years of uncertainty about this matter, and the celebration of this reveal – and Daredevil: Born Again – makes it seem like the time is right now more than ever for another Daredevil movie over 20 years after the last.
2003’s Daredevil Dealt With Mixed Reviews & Limited Box Office Results
2003’s Daredevil had an arguably ideal setup for a superhero movie. The combination of Ben Affleck as Daredevil and Colin Farrell as Bullseye is immediately one that has promise given their popularity as Batman and the Penguin respectively in more recent years, and the film even features MCU filmmaker Jon Favreau in front of the camera as Matt Murdock’s loyal ally and legal firm partner, Foggy Nelson. Add in a story that features Elektra and Kingpin as well, and it’d be fair to think the recipe was made for major success.
However, this proved to not quite translate when it came to Daredevil‘s actual release, as the film debuted to mixed reviews, with complaints citing issues with the story and its lack of substance. These criticisms persist to this day, as the Rotten Tomatoes scores for the movie can attest to, given they sit at a 43% Tomatometer score and a 35% Popcornmeter score respectively – a scoring that also appears to reflect Ben Affleck’s own perspective of the film, having stated in a 2016 interview with TIME that “I hate Daredevil so much.”
This mixed critical reception appears to have affected the film’s box office results, as Daredevil earned a worldwide box office total of $182 million (via The Numbers). Though this isn’t a small amount of money, comparing this to its reported budget – around $78 million (via Box Office Mojo) – shows it didn’t quite match the heights of the genre’s success financially, suggesting the full movie potential of Daredevil hasn’t yet been reached. For comparison, X-Men 2 also released in 2003, and fared significantly better financially, with a worldwide box office of $407 million on a budget of $110 million (Box Office Mojo).
The Success Of Charlie Cox’s Daredevil Offers A Chance For Marvel To Totally Redefine The Hero’s Movie Roster
Currently, 2003’s Daredevil is the only live-action movie starring the iconic Marvel hero, though the 2004 Elektra revolves around much of the same comic lore. While the hero has some other releases to his name, Daredevil’s on-screen appearances tend to be in animated releases, such as Spider-Man: The Animated Series – with Daredevil’s story in the series being released later down the line as Daredevil Vs Spider-Man on VHS and DVD.
Daredevil also appeared in The Trial Of The Incredible Hulk, Spider And His Amazing Friends, 1994’s Fantastic Four, and had a cameo in X-Men ’97.
Given the almost total lack of movie releases starring Daredevil – and the 2003 movie’s own mixed reputation and humble box office compared to the rest of the Marvel roster – the continuing success of Charlie Cox’s Daredevil and the stories told with this iteration of the character seem especially noteworthy for the franchise. Bringing a hero back and making them the star of their own series after years off-screen would seem impossible for many other characters, but this has proved decidedly successful with Daredevil: Born Again, which currently boasts Rotten Tomatoes of a 87% Tomatometer and 80% Popcornmeter respectively.
Though the story of Cox’s Daredevil has primarily been told via shows, this doesn’t preclude the character from his own movie. Indeed, this could help the pacing of the hero’s overarching story, since a more long-form story can be told in one go via a movie, rather than having to be split into interconnected segments. With Daredevil sorely missing any further live-action movie releases to explore the theatrical potential of the character and bolster his reputation in this regard, an MCU Daredevil movie seems like it could well be a wise idea for several reasons.
Why An MCU Daredevil Movie Would Make A Lot Of Sense For The Franchise
Daredevil has an astronomical number of Marvel comic stories that currently have never been adapted into live-action. Though Daredevil: Born Again season 1 tells – unsurprisingly – an adapted version of the comic Born Again story, and Daredevil: Born Again season 2 is theorized to adapt the Shadowland story based on the hero’s black costume as seen in set pH๏τos, there is still a wealth of exciting stories still left untold. As such, seeing if Daredevil’s success can translate now into a successful movie release would seemingly make sense, since there’s so much material that would perfectly suit the film format.
That said, even if the movie simply focused on adapting the Devil’s Reign story that Kingpin’s mayoral status has kickstarted in the MCU, this is still something that would track logically for the franchise. Not only is Devil’s Reign a huge story – both conceptually and in terms of being a story told via 6 months of real-time comic releases between 2021-2022 – it’s also a narrative that features a wide range of Marvel characters, meaning it perhaps would make more sense as a major feature-length movie that might be better suited to giving these figures their own full due as well.
With at least one other season of Daredevil: Born Again on the way for the series – and hopefully more yet to come – the future for the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen looks promising whatever specific route the future takes. However, allowing Daredevil to expand his movie presence alongside his show appearances seems like a move that could stand the MCU the best chance of using the character to his fullest, and allowing fan dreams to become yet more of a reality on-screen, capitalizing on the now 22-year-long drought of live-action Daredevil movies that has cropped up since 2003’s Daredevil.
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Thunderbolts*
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May 2, 2025
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The Fantastic Four: First Steps
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Avengers: Doomsday (2026)
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MCU Spider-Man 4
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July 24, 2026
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Avengers: Secret Wars
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May 7, 2027
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