A new member has joined the Daredevil: Born Again team. According to Deadline, Clark Johnson (Evil, Bosch) has joined the Marvel show and will direct two episodes of the season. Johnson is set to recur as an unknown character. Details about the character are being kept under wraps, but Deadline believes he will play a character called Cherry.
According to Deadline, Johnson has an extensive career directing TV episodes and movies. He earned an Emmy nomination for his directorial work on the pilot episode of The Shield. Recently he directed episodes for Showtime’s Your Honor and City on Hill; HBO Max miniseries Love & Death; Paramount+’s Mayor of Kingstown; Fox’s Accused; ABC’s Alaska Daily and CBS’ Evil. In the past, he also directed episodes for popular series such as Homeland, Law & Order, Luke Cage, and The Wire, among others. On the movie side, Johnson directed movies like S.W.A.T., Juanita, The Sentinel, and Percy V. Goliath.
The eighteen-episode show will be the first step in integrating characters, like Daredevil and Kingpin, into the MCU. These characters began their on-screen life on Netflix when Marvel had a slate of more mature TV shows on the platform almost ten years ago. They shared the Netflix-Marvel universe with lesser-known heroes and villains like Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Kilgrave, and Iron Fist.
Marvel has been planning to introduce Charlie Cox’s (Stardust, Kin) Daredevil and Vincent D’Onofrio’s (Godfather of Harlem, The Kid) Kingpin into the bigger MCU for the last few years. Both actors had cameos in MCU movies and TV shows before Marvel revealed their new show Daredevil: Born Again. Cox had a small cameo in Spider-Man: No Way Home as Spider-Man’s attorney. Daredevil also recently appeared in a couple of episodes of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law where Cox appeared wearing a new suit, and having a brief romance with She-Hulk, played by Tatiana Maslany (Orphan Black, Perry Mason). D’Onofrio reprised his role as Kingpin for the season finale of Hawkeye, which surprised fans of the original Daredevil show.
The cast of the show includes Cox as Matt Murdock aka Daredevil; D’Onofrio as Wilson Fisk also known as Kingpin; Jon Bernthal (American Gigolo, The Bear) will be reprising his role as Frank Castle aka The Punisher; Margarita Levieva (The Deuce, In from the Cold); Sandrine Holt (American Gigolo, The Expanse) who according to The Hollywood Reporter is going to play Vanessa Fisk, the wife of Kingpin; Michael Gandolfini (The Deuce, The Independent); Nikki M. James (Spoiler Alert, Proven Innocent); and Arty Froushan (Carnival Row, House of the Dragon). Two notable absences from the cast are Matt Murdock’s closest friends Karen and Foggy, played by Deborah Ann Woll (Children of Éarte, Deborah) and Elden Henson (The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Jobs) in the Netflix series.
Chris Ord (Containment, Covert Affairs) and Matt Corman (The Enemy Within, The Brave), who can’t be on set at the moment due to the strike, serve as both writers and executive producers for the show. Michael Cuesta (Elementary, Blue Blood), who is known for directing pilot episodes for Dexter and Homeland, has been selected as the director of the first episode of Daredevil: Born Again.
Daredevil: Born Again is set to premiere in the spring of 2024 on Disney+. The original Daredevil show is available to stream on Disney+. She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, The Punisher, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, The Iron Fist, and The Defenders are also available to stream through Disney+.