"Daredevil" Becomes Part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe

The TV show "Daredevil" has long been one of the most beloved characters within the Marvel universe and was created by Stan Lee. The character of Matt Murdock, the blind lawyer who spends his nights fighting crime on the streets of New York's Hell's Kitchen had been trapped by the movie rights being owned by the New Regency production company which made the 2003 movie starring Ben Affleck.

After the rights reverted to Marvel, Netflix agrees a deal produce the latest version of "Daredevil" as a web-based series first streamed by the service. "Daredevil" begins with a nod to its source material when the story of the young Matt Murdock is told in flashback as he is blinded in a tragic accident. Murdock has never failed to strive to improve his life which has included him fighting to make his way through law school to become a qualified criminal law expert who has decided the time is right to return to his home neighborhood of Hell's Kitchen on Manhattan Island.

Returning home, Murdock decides to open a law practice he hopes will fight for the rights of those who cannot protect themselves. All the time he is playing his part as the head of law practice, Matt is looking to develop his fighting skills to make sure he is ready for the nighttimes he spends on the streets of Manhattan battling criminals. Matt Murdock is the masked vigilante, Daredevil who uses his heightened senses to compensate for the fact he is blind.

Murdock is more complex than the majority of superhero characters we come across in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as he is often struggling to cope with the choices he makes in life. By day, Murdock spends his time trying to help the people of Hell's Kitchen with their legal problems before spending the nights battling violent criminals on the streets as a masked vigilante. Murdock begins to find the first traces of a conspiracy taking place in and around his neighborhood when he takes on the case of murder with connections to a criminal organization Murdock beliefs to be linked to a major corporation.

Matt Murdock begins to believe the well-known crime boss, Kingpin and the respected business leader, Wilson Fisk may be one and the same. Murdock believes the henchmen of Kingpin are responsible for the murder and sets out to prove as much. Fisk is much more than simply a crime boss with no personality or different layers of his life. During the series, the battle he embarks on with Matt Murdock and Daredevil are juxtaposed with him falling in love with his wife.

Matt Murdock is played by the English actor Charlie Cox who has appeared in a range of high-quality TV shows and movies such as HBO's "Boardwalk Empire." Cox found fame with moviegoers for his portrayal of the second husband of Jane Hawking, Jonathan Jones. Charlie Cox trained at the prestigious Bristol Old Vic Theater School before making his screen debut opposite Claire Danes in "Stardust."

Among the impressive cast of "Daredevil is actress Deborah Ann Woll who came to public attention in the vampire drama, "True Blood." Woll has appeared in many Marvel crossover shows, including "Defenders" and "The Punisher." Vincent D'Onofrio plays the twin characters of Wilson Fisk and Kingpin in "Daredevil." D'Onofrio became a household name in the late-1980s when he appeared in Stanley Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket" as Private Joker.

The showrunner of "Daredevil is Drew Goddard, writer, and producer of shows including "Lost" and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." Goddard has admitted to being a huge fan of "Daredevil," largely because of the Catholic themes of the comic books which he associated with as a child.

Each episode of the TV show is based around an eight-day shooting schedule largely completed in Brooklyn and Long Island City. The creators and designers of the show have stated they felt these were the correct locations for the show as they were trying to recreate the original comic book locations which had a gritty, urban feel. The visual look of the series has been compared to the gritty crime dramas of the 1970s, such as "The French Connection" and "Serpico." Marvel had intended the character to be part of a much larger movie version but the reminders of the Ben Affleck starring movie halted this and led to the switch to TV.

Over the course of the three completed seasons of the show, there are few audience numbers which can be looked back on as Netflix rarely releases details of its viewing figures. However, the critics have been kind to "Daredevil throughout its three seasons which have generated a large amount of buzz among viewers with the first seasons given a high of 99 percent by the Rotten Tomatoes website. The second season did not fare as well as the first or third as it dipped to an average rating of 80 percent with the third rising once more to 99 percent. The "Daredevil" TV show was canceled by Marvel and Netflix at the conclusion of the third season but does live on in a number of tie-in shows. In the comic books and on screen, the character if "Daredevil" is one of the "Defenders" group of heroes which have appeared as a TV show in their own right. Rumors have circulated of a return for "Daredevil" with the launch of the Disney streaming service because of the commercial and production partnership the two studios share.

The "Daredevil" TV show shares many of its most iconic moments with the comic books of Frank Mille in the 1990s. The introduction of the character of Wilson Fisk/Kingpin was lifted directly from a panel of the "Spiderman" comic book featuring the character. The casting of a leading actor is often a difficult one for studio heads, however, Marvel's Chief Creative Officer, Joe Quesada had been calling for Charlie Cox to take the role of Daredevil since the studio regained the rights in 2012.