It may be hard to imagine this now, but before comic book movies became almost the only game in Hollywood, there weren’t that many of them. In 2003, the year of the Matrix sequels and the last Lord of the Rings film, there were only two: X2 and Daredevil. The first was a monster hit. The second just did alright. Starring Ben Affleck as the blind crime fighter, it was a critical dud whose grosses sharply declined after its opening weekend. Alas, its rep doesn’t appear to have improved.
As per The AV Club, Charlie Cox — who played the character in the much-liked Netflix series (soon bound for Disney+), and who’s back to playing the role in fare like Spider-Man: No Way Home — was in Abu Dhabi at this year’s Middle East Film & Comic Con. He was asked about the Daredevil movie, which also featured Jennifer Garner, Colin Farrell, and Michael Clarke Duncan and did not spawn a franchise (though Garner did get a spin-off movie, which tanked). And Cox did not hold back.
“I watched it once, and then I wanted to go and do my own thing,” Cox said. He admitted he hadn’t seen it when he got the role a decade-plus after it came out. But when he watched it, it didn’t impress him much. “I don’t love the movie. I feel like the movie tried to do too much and it was a little tonally confused.”
One problem was it, if anything, tried too hard. “They had everyone in that movie — they had Kingpin, they had Bullseye, they had Elektra, they had Karen Page, they had Foggy,” he said. “It was saturated, and it’s two hours. So that was part of that problem. And the suit sucks!”
Did Cox have some kinder words to say about it? He sure did. He said Affleck was “a really good Matt Murdock,” adding, “I like his Matt Murdock.”
This isn’t Martin Scorsese-level dissing. Not even Affleck likes his Daredevil movie. Besides, Cox was at least nicer to Affleck than the Razzies.
(Via AV Club)