Joe Carnahan Discusses Why We Won’t See His Vision Of ‘Daredevil’ Hit The Big Screen

Joe Carnahan sat down and talked to The Radio Dan Show about his plans for a Daredevil movie that was supposed to happen until Fox pulled the cord. We also find out why he wanted to make the movie a period piece rather than set it in the present. Collider has hooked us up with a transcription on what was discussed.

On why there wasn’t enough time to bring his version to the screen:

I was brought in pretty late in the game, and my take probably didn’t help matters since they had an existing script. But I just thought that if you were going to do it, this was the way to go. This is the way that intrigued me…It was initially something I passed on because Christopher Nolan had done such a lovely job with Batman and unless you’re going to go after that trilogy, then that’s how you have to think. You can’t out-hurdle that, then what’s the point of trying? So it set the bar extraordinarily high, and I thought ‘Well, if we’re going to do this, let’s have a discussion about Hell’s Kitchen, and how it was really Hell’s Kitchen in the 70s,” so that got me really excited. But as I mentioned, the clock ticking and this kind of October drop-dead date, it wasn’t tenable. And having gone down this road in the past when you’re trying to write something and shoot it at the same time is disastrous, and I think you’d need an adequate amount of time to put that script together in the right way. My brother [Matthew Michael Carnahan (The Kingdom)] was interested in writing it with me, so we’ll see.

On why he thought a period piece for Daredevil would have been a good choice:

As I’m finishing my kind of reimagining of Death Wish, I think the 70s is figuring into my conscious and subconscious mind right now. I think it was the last time music and movies were just tremendous. We just cranked out some great stuff. I think that’s why the sizzle reel is able to be kind of abstract because people have such great fondness in their hearts for that decade, particularly the early part of that decade. I’m excited; you know the idea of having Daredevil on top of a building somewhere with the Serpico marquee in the background was enough, that image was enough, for me to want to make the movie.

Many fans weren’t too fond of the idea of another Daredevil film being brought to us by Fox until they found out about Carnahan’s attachment to the project. And after his sizzle reels were shown to us last night, giving us an idea on what the project would have been like, some of us are actually let down that it isn’t happening. Now, the big questions is…what will Marvel do with the man without fear?