What Marvel's Daredevil Season 4 Plans Were Before Netflix Cancelled The Series

Matt "Daredevil" Murdock (Charlie Cox) encountered numerous speed bumps on his journey from Netflix to the Marvel Cinematic Universe proper even before filming wrapped on "Daredevil: Born Again" Season 1. In late 2023, Marvel Studios chose to revamp "Born Again" with a whole different creative team, with showrunner Dario Scardapane ("The Punisher") and director duo Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson ("Moon Knight," "Loki") taking over. The end result is scheduled to premiere in March 2025, with returning characters Daredevil, Wilson "Kingpin" Fisk (Vincent D'Onofrio), Frank "Punisher" Castle (Jon Bernthal), Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll), and Foggy Nelson (Elden Henson) set to encounter new players like Hector "White Tiger" Ayala (Kamar de los Reyes, who passed away in 2023).

Production hurdles are nothing new to Marvel Studios, but from a fan standpoint, they're particularly concerning when it comes to this show. "Daredevil" was the king of Marvel's Netflix superhero era, and a lot is riding on "Born Again" injecting some much-needed gravitas and critical approval back into the MCU after the franchise's comparatively lackluster last few years. We'll find out whether or not the series can rise to the task soon enough, but in the meantime, it's worth looking back at the Netflix "Daredevil" Season 4 that never came to be. Could this scrapped season have brought something to the table that "Born Again" is unlikely to accomplish? Let's see what the people behind that show have said.

Much of what we know about the abandoned "Daredevil" Season 4 comes directly from the horse's mouth. In their 2020 appearance on the We Saved Daredevil YouTube channel, two of the Netflix series' showrunners — Season 1's Steven DeKnight and Season 3's Erik Oleson — teased the villains they had planned for the fourth season. These included the show's take on the semi-obscure gangster supervillain/Wolverine imitator The Owl, whose true identity in Marvel's comics is Leland Owsley (a character who was portrayed on "Daredevil" by the far more traditionally coiffured Bob Gunton). Since the "Daredevil" version of Leland dies pretty decisively in Season 1, Oleson had envisioned a generational change for The Owl in Season 4. "The Owl from the comics was going to be Leland Owsley's son, who was out for revenge for what happened to his father," DeKnight remembered hearing. "I was building toward that on Season 4." Oleson affirmed.

Apart from confirming that The Owl was set to play a major role in the planned "Daredevil" Season 4, Oleson also shared some information about the season's villain game at large. "I was not going to directly continue Bullseye's [Wilson Bethel] storyline because his back is broken and he had to heal," the Season 3 showrunner explained. "I was gonna bring him back in Season 5."

Oleson also revealed that Season 4 would have continued the story of Mary Walker (Alice Eve) from "Iron Fist" and explored her dangerous Typhoid Mary identity. "We were going to do kind of a warped love story/murder mystery, kind of femme fatale but kind of a modern-day feminist version of it as opposed to the older, sexist femme fatale archetype," he recalled. The showrunners also discussed in-universe costume and gadget designer Melvin Potter's (Matt Gerald) planned journey to becoming the supervillain Gladiator ... as well as the hoops the production had to jump through to retain the services of Gerald, whose scheduled was difficult to manage due to his commitment to filming James Cameron's "Avatar" sequels (where he plays Corporal Lyle Wainfleet).

Cox has also spoken about the scrapped fourth season of "Daredevil" in the past. However, it seems he wasn't entirely up to speed on Oleson's plans, seeing as he specifically mentioned being eager to see how Bullseye — whom, again, Oleson confirmed would've been largely absent from Season 4 — worked in full supervillain form. "I was looking forward to Wilson Bethel kind of getting to inhabit the character of Bullseye." Cox told Inverse in 2019. "Season 3 was kind of an origin story for the character and how Agent Poindexter becomes that character. So, I was looking forward to having a season where he really embodies the Bullseye persona and what that dynamic would be between Bullseye and Daredevil."

At the end of the day, it seems "Daredevil: Born Again" may end up being closer to what Cox expected from "Daredevil" Season 4 than what Oleson actually had in mind. Indeed, while Bethel is returning for "Born Again," there's been no indication the characters Oleson planned to focus on will be appearing on the series at all. This also further confirms that Daredevil's story has gone through a significant overhaul during its trip from Netflix to Disney+. Here's hoping that the finished product will have survived all of its teething issues with flying colors. 

"Daredevil: Born Again" premieres March 4, 2025, on Disney+.