Ben Affleck has done spectacularly well as a horror-inducing Batman during his reign in the DCEU. But when it comes to Marvel, the actor’s luck hasn’t fared too well in terms of his superheroic arc. The infamous 2003 film, Daredevil, has received a lot of flack over the decades for its failed story and its weirdly packed plot that ultimately failed to deliver its intended impact on the big screen. The director’s vision, as ambitious as it was, was muddied up by too many subplots and as such, the sequel had to be put on the back burner for the foreseeable future.
Now, with the film celebrating its 20th anniversary, the director has finally prepared himself to answer a few sought-after queries that the fans have harbored over the years.
Daredevil (2003)
Daredevil Director Addresses the Sequel’s Failure to Launch
To call Marvel’s 2003 film Daredevil a cult classic will be a partial truth, and even then, there is hardly an audience for the movie to reach the coveted rank of favoritism among the underground collectors of Hollywood flops. The pre-MCU saga of Marvel did face its fair share of mockery and criticism, but none so more than Ben Affleck’s rendition of the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen. Director Mark Steven Johnson recently claimed in an interview with Yahoo Entertainment:
“Looking back on it, one of the mistakes I made with the film was wanting to put everything in! I wanted to do Daredevil’s origin story, and I wanted to do the Elektra Saga and I wanted to introduce Bullseye and Foggy. I wanted everything to be in there, but the film could only support so much.
And then when you’re told to cut a half-hour out and and make it more of a love story, things start to feel rushed and not quite right. It’s a fan thing: when you love something so much, you want to tell it all.”
Ben Affleck as Daredevil
The movie had not only arrived with its contentious red suit which has been a topic of many quarrels among the fandom but was also followed up by a sequel exploring Jennifer Garner’s role as Elektra in the 2005 eponymous film. The film tanked horribly and crushed all hopes for a Daredevil sequel in the short term that followed before Kevin Feige was made President in 2007 and the subsequent rise of the MCU.
Was Elektra Responsible for the Downfall of Daredevil?
Ben Affleck has been very vocal about his role as the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen during and after the production of his 2003 CBM. The Academy Award-winning actor had gushed about falling in love with his then-would-be wife, Jennifer Garner, on the sets of Daredevil.
“Look at Daredevil. That’s where I found my wife. We met on Pearl Harbor, which people hate, but we fell in love on Daredevil,” and claimed – “[Daredevil] was my favorite comic book as a kid.”
Ben Affleck’s Daredevil
To Affleck, his Marvel movie was a childhood dream come true, and perhaps that fact had shielded the Oscar-winning scriptwriter from recognizing the failed potential of an over-packed script when he signed on for the role. Later, he admitted his regrets over his “silly” role in the movie.
“Part of it was I wanted for once to get one of these movies and do it right – to do a good version. I hate Daredevil so much.”
As far as Jennifer Garner’s role as the assassin-for-hire with a moral compass was concerned, she did her best for the role but the failed legacy of the previous film rendered its spin-off incompatible in the market that followed. It’s good that Marvel’s short tenure at Netflix gave the comic book character another run with Charlie Cox in the lead, thus giving the audience one of the best comic book-to-television adaptations in recent times.
