Marvel’s new heroes get real
MARVEL STUDIO’S biggest risk to date rests on the broad shoulders of a superhero without any real powers.
All 13 episodes of the event series “Daredevil” hit Netflix on Friday, heralding a major new direction for the studio — and a grittier, more grounded superhero than the ones flying around the big screen with magic hammers.
Played by “Boardwalk Empire” vet Charlie Cox, Daredevil is your basic average blind defense attorney who uses his enhanced senses to pummel criminals — and often get pummeled himself.
So the mandate for showrunner Steven DeKnight was to make “Daredevil” feel realistic: more “Taxi Driver” than “Ghost Rider.”
“How many average citizens ever get to stand next to Brad Pitt?” says DeKnight. “He’s out there, he’s on TV, but not many people are going to run into him on the street.”
Judging from the first five episodes, “Daredevil” is a huge step up from the tepidly received 2003 movie that starred Ben Affleck.
It helps that the series uses actual New York alleyways and rooftops, not a green screen.
“Hell’s Kitchen is such an important character in the Daredevil comics,” says Marvel CCO Joe Quesada, who rose to fame as an artist on the title. “So it was such a coup to film this in New York.”
“Daredevil” is also just the beginning of Marvel’s bold gamble. It will be followed by Netflix event series centered on fellow Marvel “street-level” heroes Jessica Jones, Iron Fist and Luke Cage, who also are based in Hell’s Kitchen.
The four will come together in a “Defenders” series that echoes Marvel’s successful movie strategy of uniting marquee superheroes in “The Avengers” movies.
“The Avengers, Iron Man, Captain America, they’re about saving the universe,” says Quesada. “These characters are about saving the neighborhood.”