Daredevil star Vincent D’Onofrio has teased a major role for Jon Bernthal’s Frank Castle aka The Punisher in the upcoming Disney+ series Daredevil: Born Again. Speaking with Newsweek, D’Onofrio, who will of course return as Wilson Fisk aka The Kingpin in the series, revealed that Bernthal’s violent vigilante will be “a major part of the [upcoming] show,” alongside Charlie Cox’s Man Without Fear.
While further details regarding The Punisher’s return in Daredevil: Born Again are largely unknown, Bernthal’s street-level antihero playing a big part in the story certainly tracks with the rumored direction of the series. It is expected (and now all but confirmed) that Daredevil: Born Again will take inspiration from the 2017-2018 comic book arc, Mayor Fisk, which finds The Kingpin running for Mayor.
“Daredevil’s greatest and deadliest adversary is now the city’s newly elected mayor!” the synopsis for Mayor Fisk reads. “And the stage is set for their most unbelievable showdown yet. Matt Murdock has the law and his incredible abilities in his arsenal — but Fisk has an entire city on his side. As the mayor declares Daredevil Public Enemy No. 1, Matt Murdock receives the most incredible offer of his legal career!”
Further rumors have since claimed that Matt Murdock was wiped from existence during the blip (hence the subtitle ‘Born Again’), allowing Fisk to once again take control of his criminal empire and now New York City itself. With Fisk now Mayor, the behemoth criminal mastermind has set his sights on removing street-level vigilantes, including Daredevil and The Punisher, meaning that we could see them team up once again to take down The Kingpin. While a lot of this is merely speculation at present, it certainly fits with what has been revealed so far.
Daredevil: Born Again Will Be Different to the Netflix Show
While Daredevil: Born Again has now been described as the fourth season of the Netflix series by some, and with Charlie Cox confirming that it is the same version of Matt Murdock, Vincent D’Onofrio has teased a very different approach to the Marvel character on Disney+.
"We've only just started shooting. I think we're a couple weeks in, and the show is going to be very, very different than the Netflix show, and it's so exciting because what we're doing is quite something,” the actor explained. “I think it's something that people are not going to expect. But, always with these Marvel old comic stories that are being revisited and reinvented by us actors, and the writers, the main thing is to answer the fans. To give them what they want but try to be original in some way at the same time, and so that's what we're doing on the show. It's definitely an original way to look at this, and it's really deep, really emotional."
Starring Charlie Cox as Matt Murdock aka Daredevil, Vincent D'Onofrio as Wilson Fisk aka Kingpin, and Jon Bernthal as Frank Castle aka Punisher, alongside Michael Gandolfini, Margarita Levieva, Sandrine Holt, and Nikki M. James, Daredevil: Born Again is expected to premiere on Disney+ in early 2024 as part of Phase Five of the MCU.