Will Netflix’s Daredevil Fly or Flop?
Released on 04/06/2015
(soft music)
Will the new Netflix series about the man without fear
be terrific, like Frank Miller's Daredevil,
or will it be ghastly, like Ben Affleck's Daredevil?
Find out on this week's episode of Angry Nerd.
(steam engine blowing)
First, your comments.
Mason LaCour writes, can you do a video
about how to make a proper Green Lantern movie?
Hey, Mason, I was pretty excited about the original version
of the last one,
which had a script by Robert Smigel,
Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog,
and it would have starred Jack Black.
But then, instead of making an out-and-out comedy,
DC decided to just make something laughable.
So, 13 episodes of Netflix's Daredevil are going live
simultaneously on April tenth.
I plan to pace myself.
I'll take a 15-minute break
between episode six and episode seven.
I don't want my body to fuse to the couch again,
like when I binge-watched House of Cards season two.
Now, I know a lot of other commentators out there
on the Interweb of the tubes are obsessing
over Daredevil's outfit in this new series.
Why is Matt Murdock wearing a black
Dread Pirate Roberts's getup?
Where's the iconic red costume?
Or the classic yellow costume, for that matter.
(exasperated sigh) Take a chill pill, you geeks.
That has nothing to do with the success
or failure of the series.
Who cares what he wears?
See, superhero costumes don't interest me.
They ju....
I just...
Okay, okay.
They don't interest me much.
The real key to the success
or failure of this new Daredevil isn't gonna be wardrobe.
It's gonna be how well the series portrays
the key supporting characters.
No, not Daredevil's buddy, Foggy Nelson,
or his love interest, Karen Page.
Not even his mentor, Stick.
I'm talking about Wilson Kingpin Fisk,
and New York city itself.
Daredevil comics had terrible villains.
Stilt-Man.
Flying Frog?
But Kingpin.
Kingpin was a cartoonish character
who gradually got more menacing as the series progressed.
In the new show, Wilson Fisk is played
by the excellent Vincent D'Onofrio.
Good sign.
And he'll apparently get a story arc just like Matt Murdock.
We'll even see him courting his future wife.
Promising.
Now, Daredevil's stomping grounds
are the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of New York,
and to capture the spirit of the comic,
it needs to be a filthy, seedy, violent place.
If they're doing it right,
viewers should feel like they want to take a shower
and burn their clothes after watching.
And it should not be glitzy-grimy, like on Gotham.
Like, some high-paid art director spent hours
carefully besmirching the set and bathing it in shadows,
so that it's the most gorgeous urban blight
you've ever seen.
My take, I think Netflix will pull off
the portrayal of Kingpin, but faceplant on the setting.
I hope I'm wrong.
What do you think?
Let me know in the comments.
Hey, remind me sometime to tell you
my theory about how Daredevil was obviously inspired
by the Japanese movies about the blind swordsman Zatoichi.
Well, I mean, I can't explain it now.
It takes several hours for me
to lay out my case point by point.
I don't even have my Powerpoint presentation.
(steam engine blowing)
I'm intrigued by the way that Marvel/Netflix
is going to be sort of like the pocket universe
extended miniseries version
of the Marvel cinematic universe.
Instead of doing a few big-budget movies
about individual superheros
that culminate in a monster budget superteen movie,
Netflix is giving a series to four of the more gritty
and down-to-earth heroes of the Marvel pantheon.
And then they'll all team up in a Defenders series.
That could be amazing.
Or it could be pure torture.
The big problem with the Marvel movies
is that they undermine their storylines
by trying to cram in all of this setup
for the next installment in the franchise.
Does that problem go away if you have 50 episodes to fill,
or will they just stuff it full of 10 times as much
cross-promotion and setup?
I'm just happy to see superhero shows
that don't have to be structured around commercial breaks.
What do you think?
Let me know in the comments.
Subscribe to Wired channel on YouTube,
and click on these tiny versions of me over there
to binge-watch more Angry Nerd episodes.
Hey, maybe if one of those versions of me
got hit by gamma rays,
and the other one got injected with super-soldier serum,
we could form an Angry Nerd superteam.
Oh, it'd be great.
Our arch nemesis could be like, Galactus, Lex Luthor.
Oh, and Michael Bane.
Oh, hey, this is perfect.
This is solid gold.
Somebody get me Stan Lee on the phones.
This idea is going to make me rich.
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