Actor Vincent D’Onofrio, who plays Kingpin in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, shared his praise for Marvel Studios for scrapping Daredevil: Born Again and starting over on it.
(L-R): Alaqua Cox as Maya Lopez and Vincent D’Onofrio as Wilson Fisk/Kingpin in Marvel Studios’ Echo, releasing on Hulu and Disney+. Photo by Chuck Zlotnick. ©Marvel Studios 2023. All Rights Reserved.
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter (THR) about his character and the upcoming Daredevil: Born Again series as well as the recently released Echo series, D’Onofrio was first asked about his previous comments regarding how Marvel Studios was going to handle Daredevil and Kingpin returning in She-Hulk: Attorney At Law and Hawkeye.
D’Onofrio previously told ScreenRant following the release of Hawkeye, “I think from my point of view, like a lot of the Avengers stuff, a lot of the MCU stuff, they tried to connect as many dots to the original canon as they can, and some dots are just not possible to connect.
“And that’s what we’ve done with connecting to Daredevil and vice versa. There’s some dots [that] are connected,” he added.
Fra Fee as Kazi and Vincent D’Onofrio as Wilson Fisk/Kingpin in Marvel Studios’ HAWKEYE. Photo by Chuck Zlotnick. ©Marvel Studios 2021. All Rights Reserved.
READ: Hollywood Screenwriter Asserts Studios Sidelined “White, Straight, Male Writers And Directors”
He then explained the similarities and differences, “Like in the Hawkeye show, Fisk is obviously physically stronger and can take more physical abuse.”
“But the key to his being an interesting character, in my mind, will always be the fact that he has this emotional life that grounds him, that makes everything work, as far as I’m concerned,” he said.
D’Onofrio then shared, “We can sell that character in so many facets. Story-wise we can sell it, if we keep him based in that emotional life. And I know that the writers, and the producers, and me, and everybody involved in the Hawkeye show, we were all on the same page about that.”
WESTWOOD, CALIFORNIA – JANUARY 08: (L-R) Vincent D’Onofrio and Alaqua Cox attend the Echo Launch Event at Regency Village Theatre in Los Angeles, California on January 08, 2024. (Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for Disney)
Clearly, it appeared that the Kingpin in Marvel’s Daredevil and Hawkeye were indeed different characters despite having some similarities.
That has all changed now according to D’Onofrio. He told The Hollywood Reporter, “During our restart of all the creative on Daredevil: Born Again, all the creatives got together and said, ‘Look, this is how we’ve got to do it now.’ So we are for sure only speaking about it in terms of being directly connected to the original Daredevil, and that’s a great thing.”
He added, “It brings in a lot of cool stories and all the collateral story that happened in those original three seasons. So we now get to start this Born Again situation with all of that history behind us and the outcome of all that history. So we’re all talking about Daredevil: Born Again in those terms now.”
(L-R): Vincent D’Onofrio as Wilson Fisk/Kingpin and Darnell Besaw as young Maya Lopez in Marvel Studios’ ECHO, releasing on Hulu and Disney+. Photo courtesy of Marvel Studios. © 2023 MARVEL.
D’Onofrio would also emphasize that moving forward Marvel Studios and the Daredevil: Born Again production need to “be very savvy when it comes to the canon of these characters, Daredevil and Kingpin.
“We need to be on it when it comes to the right tone, and we need to give them what they’re looking for when it comes to this kind of storytelling,” he emphasized. “It’s different from the other stuff. Neither of us have superpowers, and we’re not from outer space. We’re character-driven story characters. That’s the way we were presented originally, and that’s the idea now. So all of the artists and creatives behind this stuff are going to change things slightly to make our story interesting.”
Hailee Steinfeld as Kate Bishop and Vincent D’Onofrio as Wilson Fisk/Kingpin in Marvel Studios’ HAWKEYE. Photo by Chuck Zlotnick. ©Marvel Studios 2021. All Rights Reserved.
D’Onofrio also made some interesting comments regarding the Daredevil: Born Again reboot. The show was scrapped back in October with Borys Kit at The Hollywood Reporter revealing the show was undergoing “a significant creative reboot.”
To that effect they canned writers Chris Ord and Matt Corman as well as the show’s planned directors. They would bring in Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead to direct the series after the duo previously worked on Loki Season 2 and multiple episodes of Moon Knight. Dario Scardapane, who worked on Punisher and Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan was brought on to showrun the series.
WESTWOOD, CALIFORNIA – JANUARY 08: Vincent D’Onofrio attends the Echo Launch Event at Regency Village Theatre in Los Angeles, California on January 08, 2024. (Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for Disney)
D’Onofrio reacted to Benson and Moorhead joining the series telling THR, “I’m a huge fan of those guys, and I talk to them all the time now. I’m so happy that they’re doing this show. I’m just so happy about it. When I heard that, I was like, ‘OK, not only are we switching things up, but the bosses are doing the right thing for us.'”
He elaborated, “They’ve given us their hottest talent, and that’s pretty cool. So the first thing I did was thank them. I thanked Kevin [Feige] for doing that and sticking with Charlie and I. It’s a pretty amazing thing.”
(L-R): Vincent D’Onofrio as Wilson Fisk/Kingpin and Alaqua Cox as Maya Lopez in Marvel Studios’ ECHO, releasing on Hulu and Disney+. Photo by Chuck Zlotnick. © 2023 MARVEL.
What do you make of D’Onofrio’s comments about Daredevil: Born Again?
NEXT: Rumor: Marvel Bringing Back Deborah Ann Woll And Elden Henson For ‘Daredevil: Born Again’
