Daredevil fans were given a treat in December when Charlie Cox’s superhero made an appearance in Spider-Man: No Way Home and over on Disney+, Vincent D’Onofrio reprised his roles as Wilson “Kingpin” Fisk in Hawkeye’s finale. With recent news that Daredevil and the other Marvel Television series will be leaving Netflix for a new home, there has been a lot of speculation about how connected the old TV shows are to the MCU. Recently Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige revealed the reason why he decided to bring back Kingpin.
Following the cancelation of Daredevil at Netflix, there was always the expectation that at least some of these characters would be making their way to the MCU in the future. The big question that remained unanswered for a number of years is whether the characters would be recast or whether the fan favorites will be portrayed by the same stars as in the series. Following the Spider-Man: No Way Home reveal of Matt Murdock, aka Daredevil, Charlie Cox confirmed that he had known for some time that he would be reprising the role within the MCU. When it comes to D’Onofrio’s Kingpin though, that seems to have been a more recent decision as Feige recently discussed.
As reported by The Direct, Feige explained how the need for a “big bad” in New York’s underworld left only one real option of whom to bring into Hawkeye’s series as someone who would strike fear into Clint Barton. He said:
“When you talk about organized crime in the Marvel universe and you talk about the seedy underbelly of New York City, there is one primary character that comes to mind.”
Kingpin’s Hawkeye Return Was All Kevin Feige’s Idea and There Was No Chance It Wouldn’t Happen
Hawkeye executive producer Brad Winderbaum and producer Trinh Tran further detailed how Kevin Feige was the instigator for Kingpin’s return from the star. Tran revealed, “Kevin threw out the idea that ‘What if this could be Kingpin?’ And I think all of our jaws just kind of dropping our Zoom meetings, and we’re kinda like, ‘Wait, you’re joking, right? This can’t be serious. Are you serious? This is… You really think that there’s a chance that we can actually get Vincent D’Onofrio, who plays Kingpin in Daredevil in the series, as a cameo for a couple of scenes? Like, he is our big boss?’ And Kevin made a call to Vincent.”
Winderbaum detailed something similar, saying, “We were all on a call, me and Kevin and Trinh, and we were talking about the Tracksuit Mafia and the criminal organization behind this story, and we needed a really big threat, like something that, you know, would make Eleanor Bishop shake in her boots and Hawkeye, you know, get a little bit afraid. It had to be someone powerful.”
Of course, the finale of Hawkeye gave the suggestion that Kingpin had finally earned his comeuppance for his crimes at the hands of Echo, but as his “death” occurred off camera that is all up for debate. Bringing back D’Onofrio’s character for one episode at the same time Charlie Cox was being reintroduced in No Way Home seems to suggest there is more to come from both characters, but that is something that has not been confirmed yet.
There is a small chance that Kingpin’s return simply allowed the character to be given a proper end after the cancellation of Daredevil, or it could be start of a whole story for the crime boss with the upcoming Echo series being a possible place to start. It is clear from his recent interviews that D’Onofrio would be happy to reprise the role again if called upon, and fans would certainly love to see him take on Daredevil one more time, but for now, we can only wait and speculate on when and if that will happen.