Twenty years ago, at a very different time for comic book movies, there was a big screen, big budget version of Daredevil. It starred Ben Affleck as blind lawyer-crimefighter Matt Murdock. Jennifer Garner was Elektra. Colin Farrell played Bullseye. It did pretty well if not great. It even got an spinoff for Elektra. But the world never again saw Affleck in a tight red suit. But why is that? (Other than Affleck hating it.)
In a retrospective interview on the film’s 20th anniversary with Yahoo! Entertainment, the film’s director, Mark Steven Johnson, explained, among other things, why there was never a Daredevil 2. At the time, Marvel — some five years before the first Iron Man — decided that instead of a sequel they’d try out a spinoff.
“I think the plan was that they would make an Elektra movie and then in success do another Daredevil,” said Johnson. “I didn’t work on the Elektra movie at all, but that one didn’t work out, and then everything kind of went away, unfortunately.”
Indeed, Elektra was a bomb, not even grossing past the $25 million mark domestically — a fourth of what Daredevil made. So that’s the end of that story.
Things eventually worked out well for a screen Matt Murdock. Some 12 years later, Netflix debuted a TV series version starring Charlie Cox (who also doesn’t like the Daredevil movie). It ended after only three seasons, due to Marvel cutting ties with the streamer. But Cox will be coming back for more on Disney+, even though he says the revival is a different thing and not just Season 4.
(Via Yahoo! Entertainment)