Late last year, Netflix and Marvel dropped a bomb on the pop-culture world by announcing that the streaming service will begin airing four television series built around separate Marvel superheroes, followed by another mini-series that combined them all into The Defenders. Daredevil will be the first of those four series, and since that announcement, the series has begun filming and while we still don’t know any of the plot details (expect an origin story), we do have a lot more information now than we did back in November.
Here’s what we know, so far:
— We learned at this year’s Comic Con that Daredevil will premiere on Netflix in May 2015.
— We do not yet know whether Daredevil will meet the other street-level superheroes (Luke Cage, iron Fist, Jessica Cage) during the Daredevil series, but they will all meet up in the Defenders mini-series, which will air after the four individual series.
— Charlie Cox will play Matt Murdock, a blind lawyer who fights for justice in the courtroom and out of the courtroom as the masked vigilante Daredevil.
— Vincent D’Onofrio is the villain, the Kingpin, a feared crime lord in the Marvel universe.
— Deborah Ann Woll is Karen Page, the love interest of Daredevil.
— Elden Henson (below, on the left) will play Foggy Nelson, Matt Murdock’s best friend and law partner.
— Rosario Dawson has been cast in an unnamed role, described by Marvel as “a dedicated young woman whose quest to heal the wounds of Hell’s Kitchen brings Matt Murdock unexpectedly crashing into her life, while her own journey forever alters the course of his battle against the injustices of this broken city.” Many believe that Dawson will play Elektra.
— Steven DeKnight — a former Buffy the Vampire Slayer writer, and the showrunner on Spartacus — will run Daredevil. Drew Goddard (Cabin in the Woods) was originally supposed to run the show, as well as write and direct the pilot, but he has since left the project to focus on the Spider-Man spin-off, Sinister Six. Goddard has remained on, however, as a consultant.
— There will be 13 hour-long episodes of the series.
— It’s being filmed in Hell’s Kitchen this summer, and as Steven DeKnight notes, “We’re going for a gritty, 1970s’ New York feel for the show. We love the idea of beauty and the decay of the city, and Hell’s Kitchen being a place that’s both beautiful and gritty at the same time. And that’s why Matt Murdock loves it and wants to protect it.”
— Farren Blackburn (The Fades, Doctor Who) is expected to direct an episode.
— If the series are popular on Netflix, they could earn their own feature films, according to Disney CEO Bob Iger.
