Joe Carnahan's '70s Thriller Take On 'Daredevil' May Have "Gone Up In Smoke"

So what's happening with Daredevil over at Fox? The studio has planned to reboot the character, and for some time had David Slade attached to direct the film. The script is based on Frank Miller and David Mazzuccheli's Born Again storyline, which sees Matt Murdock's friend/employee Karen Page addicted to heroin and selling Murdock's secret identity — he's really the vigilante Daredevil — to score drugs. The info lands in the Kingpin's hands, and he uses it in a very nearly successful attempt to destroy Murdock.

We've known that the script was a serious, '70s style thriller rather than a colorful lark with a blind guy in a red costume. When Slade fell away from the project recently, we heard that Joe Carnahan was in talks with Fox to take over. Carnahan has done a couple of colorful larks (The A-Team, Smokin' Aces) but he's also done a couple more serious thrillers (Narc, The Grey) and the idea of him bringing that sensibility to Daredevil was the most interesting angle we'd heard for the reboot yet.

Now, however, the director suggests it very well might not happen.

On Twitter last night [1, 2], Carnahan said,

Think my idea for a certain retro, red-suited, Serpico-styled superhero went up in smoke today kids. We shall see. Time is NOT on anyone's side.

By time, he means that Fox has to get a film rolling by October 10 or the character rights revert back to Marvel. As we've said in the past, that "Serpico-styled" thriller really isn't the sort of movie Fox seems to want to make right now. I'd be more surprised if the studio wanted to move forward with that sort of film than if it does not.

And so what happens next? Fox needs someone to start making a Daredevil movie within the next two months, which doesn't leave a lot of time to wrangle a new take on the character.