By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
For both studio executives and fans, there are high-flying hopes that Daredevil: Born Again will be the smash Marvel hit that Disney+ desperately needs. There are many reasons to hope that the show will succeed, including the return of the key actors who made the original Netflix show a fan favorite. For me, though, the biggest reason to be hopeful is that Daredevil: Born Again will be rated TV-MA, representing Disney’s belated desire to diversify its MCU content.
Daredevil Needs To Be Dark
Part of what made the Netflix Daredevil show such a hit is that it wasn’t afraid to go extremely dark as necessary. We got bloody scenes like Kingpin murdering a flunky with a car door and Punisher murdering almost everyone who comes at him in Ryker’s Island. When Daredevil: Born Again was first announced, fans were worried that Disney would take a lighter, more kid-friendly approach to this brutal franchise. The TV-MA rating means it can be brutal like before, but the main reason I’m hyped is that, for the first time in a long time, Disney is ready to create different shows for different kinds of audiences.
Well before Daredevil: Born Again was in production and before Disney+ even existed, the House of Mouse released Marvel content through various platforms that were aimed at very specific audiences. Younger fans got shows like Cloak & Dagger on Freeform and Runaways on Hulu whereas older fans got more movie-like content on ABC via series like Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Agent Carter. Netflix became the de facto home of mature Marvel content, delivering shows like Daredevil and Jessica Jones that, frankly, couldn’t easily be shown anywhere outside of streaming.
When Disney+ came along, though, all of the shows were aimed at the same middle-of-the-road audience that Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. were aimed at. That’s not inherently a bad thing. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. was a very solid show in its own right, and early Disney+ shows like WandaVision and Loki proved that the studio still had some great stories to tell. However, it was clear mature content wasn’t a focus after Disney “accidentally” uploaded a censored episode of The Falcon and The Winter Soldier and subsequently gave all of its legacy Netflix MCU shows a content warning.
The New Disney/Marvel TV-MA Era
Now, Daredevil: Born Again getting a TV-MA rating is proof that Disney is ready to go all-in on creating more mature content. Sure, the Echo miniseries was also TV-MA, but that felt more like a marketing angle for a show that flew under most people’s radar. Born Again, however, is Marvel fans’ most-anticipated Disney+ show, and letting such a popular character get some more R-rated adventures means that the streamer is finally ready to create more mature shows for more mature audiences.
If Daredevil: Born Again proves to be a hit on Disney+, we may get more TV-MA Marvel content. For example, if Punisher got his own revival series, Frank Castle would definitely need this more mature rating to properly punish his foes. Other familiar characters like Elektra and even Ghost Rider would benefit from having solo series that aren’t constrained by the need to make family-friendly programming. Plus, given that it looks like we may never get that Blade movie, this show may be reborn as Disney+ with all of the hilarious and violent profanity of Wesley Snipes’s original movies.
Admittedly, all of this might be putting the cart in front of the horse (or should that be hallway in front of the hero?). Daredevil: Born Again could very well flop on Disney+, especially after the show had to fire its existing writers and directors to creatively overhaul the entire series. Still, hope springs eternal, and we can only hope that the House of Mouse embraces more of the storytelling diversity that has always made Marvel great. Otherwise, the Netflix era of Marvel may be remembered as the last time this franchise was willing to swing for the streaming fences.