Twentieth Century Fox has taken a step forward in their plans to get their Daredevil comic book adaptation franchise back into theaters by hiring David Slade to helm the project.
This isn’t the first time that Slade, director of Hard Candy and 30 Days Of Night, has been considered by Fox to head up one of their comic book films. Recently, he was on the shortlist of potential candidates to take on the studio’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine follow-up. That job ultimately went to Darren Arronofsky.
The original Daredevil film starred Ben Affleck as blind lawyer Matt Murdock who fought crime as the titular superhero aided by the super-sensitivity of his remaining senses.
Interestingly, the Variety article that broke the news stated that the film would be a “continuation of the superhero pic, and will not contain material from the Ben Affleck-toplined version released by Fox in 2003.” This would imply that it won’t be an origin story and that the characters of Murdock’s love interest Elektra, the assassin Bullseye and crime boss The Kingpin won’t be back. While I can see a movie without Elektra, I find it hard to imagine a one without Kingpin showing up in some form, if only because many of the other members of Daredevil’s rogues’ gallery strike me as a bit too goofy to translate well onto the big screen. (Man-Bull or Stiltman, anyone?)
The Variety article makes no mention David Scarpa, who was tapped to write a draft for the studio about a year ago. It is possible that he is no longer on the project, and since he is also the one responsible for the screenplay for the remake of The Day The Earth Stood Still, that can only be a good thing.
