The road to bringing Daredevil: Born Again to Disney+ was anything but smooth. The Marvel series, which debuted in 2025, went through a major creative shakeup behind the scenes that left the first season feeling like two different shows stitched together. Now, as Season 2 prepares to arrive on March 24, 2026, showrunner Dario Scardapane is opening up about the challenges of fixing a troubled production and how the upcoming episodes will finally deliver the street-level action fans have been waiting for.
The Original Plan That Didn’t Work
When Marvel first started developing Daredevil: Born Again, the creative team had a very different vision for the Man Without Fear. According to Scardapane’s recent interview with SFX Magazine, the initial direction leaned heavily into legal drama territory rather than the action-packed style that made the Netflix series a fan favorite.
“The task of season one was a really sick kind of fun,” Scardapane explained. “They’d gone in a direction where it was a different kind of show. It was much more of a procedural, much more focused on the courtroom.”
This approach meant that Charlie Cox’s Matt Murdock spent more time arguing cases than suiting up as Daredevil. Reports from before the creative overhaul indicated that the hero reportedly didn’t appear in costume until the fourth episode . The original 18-episode order was designed to be a slow-burn prestige series, but Marvel executives realized the footage wasn’t working after production paused during the writers strike in 2023.
The “Frankenstein” Approach to Saving Season 1
With the series already partially filmed, Marvel made the difficult decision to let go of head writers Chris Ord and Matt Corman and bring in Dario Scardapane, who had previously worked on The Punisher, to reshape the show. The challenge was figuring out how to salvage what had already been shot while steering the series back toward what fans expected.
Scardapane described the result as a “cobbled-together Frankenstein” – a mix of the original footage with newly written and reshot material designed to course-correct the narrative . The creative team added a completely new opening scene that saw Foggy Nelson meet a tragic end, and brought back Jon Bernthal’s Punisher in the finale to set up future stories.
“By landing really strongly at the beginning and end with an idea of ‘This is what the show wants to be, this is what the show is’, we were able to kick the narrative into the second season relatively unfettered,” Scardapane said .
Despite the behind-the-scenes chaos, the first season managed to score an 87% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, though some critics pointed to an inconsistent tone and villains that didn’t quite land.
Fighting to Bring Back Karen Page
One of the biggest changes Scardapane pushed for involved Deborah Ann Woll’s Karen Page. In the original version of Season 1, Karen was barely part of the story – a decision that made no sense to the new showrunner given her importance in the Netflix series.
“When I came into season one, and Karen was originally not a big part of the narrative – or no part of it at all – I was like, ‘Guys, guys, guys, we can’t do that!’” Scardapane recalled . “Karen’s got to be a part of this world for a lot of reasons, and we didn’t have as much of her as I would have liked in season one.”
For Season 2, Scardapane promised that Karen’s role will feel much more connected to her character history. “In season two, the evolution of Karen Page feels so on path with everything that’s come before. In my mind – and in Debs’s mind – she’s never been a sidekick; she’s never been a girlfriend. She’s always been somebody who both mirrors and pushes Murdock – not always in the best way” .
Letting the Action “Rip” in Season 2
With the foundation finally set, Scardapane confirmed that Season 2 will deliver the kind of action fans have been craving. The showrunner told SFX Magazine that the upcoming episodes will “let it rip in a way we might not have been able to last season” .
This means more of the brutal, street-level fight scenes that defined the Netflix era, combined with the higher production values of a Marvel Studios series. The season will see Vincent D’Onofrio’s Wilson Fisk serving as Mayor of New York City, using his political power to hunt down vigilantes – specifically targeting Daredevil.
Krysten Ritter’s Jessica Jones is also confirmed to appear, bringing another piece of the Netflix universe back into the fold. Matthew Lillard joins the cast as a mysterious new character named Mr. Charles, who appears to be a significant antagonist in the upcoming episodes .
Balancing Politics and Street-Level Crime
Interestingly, Scardapane admitted to having mixed feelings about the political direction Season 2 has taken. With Fisk as mayor, the show naturally draws parallels to real-world politics – something that happened almost by accident as the writers crafted the story.
“The playbook is pretty well established, so when we were writing this stuff we were like, ‘Here’s what he does,’” Scardapane said . “There are a few sequences that were shot a year ago that could be off the news, and it’s weirding all of us out.”
While he acknowledged that Stan Lee always intended Marvel comics to reflect the real world, Scardapane personally prefers Daredevil operating at a more grounded level.
“Getting into the realm of politics, New York politics, the Game of Thrones intrigue behind the scenes… okay, that’s fun too, but as it becomes almost too topical it feels like it’s going away from the large, mythological genre stuff,” he explained. “As we finish up the Mayor Fisk run with season 2, what we’re doing going forward feels more like a return to the Frank Miller-era comics. So yeah, it was fun to play in the realm of politics but I like something a little more street level, personally” .
Staying Downtown in the MCU
One question fans have been asking is how connected Daredevil: Born Again will be to the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe. With heroes like Spider-Man, Doctor Strange, and countless others operating in New York City, why is Matt Murdock seemingly the only one concerned about a corrupt mayor?
Scardapane addressed this by explaining that the show is intentionally keeping its focus narrow. “The joke we make is, ‘Oh, those guys are uptown – we’re downtown!’” he said . “We kind of have a pocket that’s in this world of Hell’s Kitchen, in this world of New York. I always think that maybe these characters take little vacations into the larger world but the story that we’re focusing on is really granular. It’s this neighborhood.”
While this approach makes sense for maintaining the show’s identity, it does raise logical questions. Fisk’s Anti-Vigilante Task Force is actively hunting people in the streets, which would theoretically affect any hero operating in the city. For now, fans will have to accept that Daredevil is handling this particular problem on his own.
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What Was Left on the Cutting Room Floor
As Season 2 approaches, new details have emerged about material that was cut from the first season. A VFX reel recently revealed that Matt Murdock originally carried a yellow horn prop, likely connecting to the yellow suit he wore in She-Hulk: Attorney at Law .
Even more intriguing are stills showing a cut scene between Daredevil and The Punisher in Frank Castle’s base. In the finished version of Season 1, Karen convinced Frank to help Matt. The deleted footage suggests the original plan may have had Matt seeking out Frank directly .
One of the writers who worked on the series both before and after the overhaul, Jesse Wigutow, previously explained the thinking behind the original direction. “I think I’m not speaking out of turn in saying that there was an effort to make the show very separate from the Netflix one and kind of a new concept,” Wigutow said. “I feel like some of that worked well, and some of it didn’t. There was a pointed effort and a left turn – to not necessarily return to Netflix, but honor the Netflix origin of the show” .
Daredevil: Born Again Season 2 premieres on Disney+ on March 24, 2026. The new season will be available to stream in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, India, and globally on the platform. Viewers can expect a more focused, action-heavy season that finally delivers on the promise of bringing Netflix’s Daredevil properly into the MCU while maintaining the gritty, character-driven storytelling fans love.
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