Another of the insta-reboots (along with new takes on Spider-Man and Fantastic Four) currently in development at various studios is Daredevil, the Marvel comic book title that was turned into a 2003 movie starring Ben Affleck for 20th Century Fox.
The ’03 movie cost $78 million to make and went on to bring in about $179 million worldwide. It also faced pretty mediocre critical reception — both being assumed reasons Fox has decided they wanted to give it another run. A reboot has been known about for a while, but the studio has now found someone to develop the project and possibly direct it, as well.
Fox has hired David Slade, who recently directed The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, to develop a brand new take on the Daredevil story. It’s assumed that once everything comes together, Slade would also be the man to direct. Eclipse cost $68 million to make and went on to bring in almost $700 million worldwide.
Nothing is official yet, but some sources are saying that the new movie will be based on Sin City and 300 creator Frank Miller‘s work on the character, known as the Born Again storyline.
Slade has also directed 30 Days of Night and Hard Candy.
What do you think of the planned Daredevil reboot? I personally like the 2003 movie quite a bit — cheesy at times, but also pretty dark and entertaining — but would be interested to see new take on the character born from the mind of Frank Miller.
Share your thoughts!
[Source: Variety, Heat Vision]
Didn’t think Daredevil ’03 was bad either. Enjoyable for what it was, the effects were pretty cool and the portrayal of each character was unoffensive. Personally, I think Marvel played it safer than they should have and that they regret the results. Blade and Blade 2 were pretty safe movies (even if Marvel lost on character recognition, the general vampire theme would’ve saved them) as both Spiderman and X-Men were guaranteed to turn profits even if they sucked. I think Marvel took a very small risk with Daredevil, going out on a limb a little bit but not reaching too far, and banked on the Hulk (and his name recognition) and X-Men 2 to offset any losses. For 2003 and in fostering modern mainstream interest in comic book-driven movies, Daredevil wasn’t bad. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a blockbuster either. They took bigger risks with Spiderman 2 and then Iron Man knocked it out of the ball park. Today, in hindsight of the money that their A-list characters made and the boundaries that were pushed by their respective sequels (plus Iron Man), Daredevil looks like a dud. Plus there’s the Elektra spin-off but associating Daredevil with that cr@p is just plain unfair. In 2003 though? Daredevil was a pretty solid adaptation and I think everyone is being too harsh.
Comment by Anonymous — March 17, 2011 @ 1:40 am