Jon Bernthal Refused To Return To Daredevil Until Marvel Did A Comic Accurate Punisher.

Jon Bernthal recently revealed that he almost didn’t return to the Daredevil universe as Frank Castle/ The Punisher. Apparently, the early versions of “Daredevil: Born Again” did not include the character as he was in the Netflix universe or the Marvel comics. Given what the actor has stated, it seems the rumors about the show being very “jokey” were true.

Marvel initially approached Bernthal with the first iteration of the show, which didn’t appeal to the actor.

“Ultimately, I didn’t see it. I didn’t see the version of Frank, and what they wanted from Frank didn’t really make sense to me and I thought would not appeal to the fans and wouldn’t be congruent. It was not something I was really interested in doing. So we had to walk away.”

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly (EW), he indicated that he wasn’t going to return to the character if it went for “cuteness or humor,” saying,

“It was like, let’s see if this works. Let’s see if there’s a real openness and a hunger to let Frank be what Frank is, which is dark enough to have the courage and the boldness to turn your back on the audience and to make it difficult, to make it enormously psychologically complex and to steer away from any cuteness or humor and to really go full bore.

Then Marvel realized the show wasn’t working and removed the directors they had on it. They brought in Dario Scardapane, who wrote and executive produced “The Punisher” for Netflix; Directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead were also brought in to work with Scardapane.

It makes sense that Bernthal would be interested in returning when he knew the show and his character would return to the Marvel comics / Netflix storyline and style.

Bernthal wanted to make sure he only took the role if he could “serve it.”

“Sometimes you have to be very, very clear with your intentions in this business. You can’t get confused with how much you love something, how much you love playing something, how much you want to do something. You got to make sure you’re serving it. You got to make sure you’re doing justice to the people that believe in it and doing justice to the iterations that have come before you.”

He must be doing a great job because he has been announced for “Daredevil: Born Again” season 2. He is also writing and starring in a new Punisher TV special, similar to Marvel’s Werewolf by Night. Bernthal will be working on the script alongside director Reinaldo Marcus Green, who will also show-run the new special.

It seems that Disney is on board with pleasing fans and bringing back what worked, at least when it involves the Netflix shows. I’m so glad Bernthal held his ground and put the integrity of the character above just returning because he missed it.

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