Vincent D'Onofrio and Charlie Cox Reunite for Marvel's 'Echo'
The rebuild officially continues. Three months after their involvement was discovered via a now-absent listing on costume designer Stacy Caballero’s resume, it was officially reported that Charlie Cox and Vincent D'Onofrio will be reprising their roles as Matt Murdock/Daredevil and Wilson Fisk/Kingpin in the upcoming Hawkeye spinoff series Echo, premiering next year on Disney+. They originated the roles in a Daredevil series that aired from 2015-2018 on Netflix. And it seems that The Man Without Fear will be suiting up again, complete with his own subplot.
This is a major step in reintegrating the entire slate of characters from Marvel Television’s Netflix series into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which they had always been part of since their original announcement in 2013. During the shows’ actual runs the ties were pretty much offhand comments, and soon enough, Disney would be developing its own streaming service. In an act of seeming retaliation, canceled all of the ongoings in the slate (Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, and The Punisher).
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However, Netflix held character rights for two years before they could revert to Marvel Studios. Ironically, the first instances of the work being put in occurred in the two least-affected MCU projects of the most turbulent times for both TV and film production and movie theaters themselves during the pandemic we are actually still in. And they happened to be released within a day of each other. First was Hawkeye’s mic drop at the end of episode 5 "Ronin", which revealed Kingpin as Eleanor Bishop’s contact.
The very next day (because you know how Thursday previews just encroach on an entire day) was the release of Spider-Man: No Way Home, which saw Peter and May Parker and Happy Hogan enlist Murdock, the very good lawyer, to clear Peter’s legal troubles. And then of course Kingpin has his bigger role in “So This is Christmas?”, the Hawkeye finale, where he was shot by his niece, the very one who headlines the Echo series. It makes sense that this is his next stop. So by both returning for Echo, the two returned together apart initially, but will next return together… together. And how prolonged are they going to make the wait for Murdock and Fisk to cross paths again when they’re just configuring the next Daredevil series, why wait?… Unless they do make us wait…Nah.
I didn’t watch all of Daredevil. I watched all of the first season, but somehow still never got around to making it past the season 2 premiere in all these years. On the one hand, it’s the one Marvel Television Netflix series I left incomplete. On the other, it’s because I finished Luke Cage and Jessica Jones and never started the other series. But that doesn’t mean I can’t cheer on a great play of the long game by passionate actors that vault them into more of the character. And after over 8 years, finally getting those stronger MCU connections, I can only anticipate even more of a pilgrimage. Sure would be interesting if Matt was still disconnected from Foggy and Karen, like Peter is to, well, everyone but especially Ned and MJ, making Peter have met someone he’d find himself similar to by the end of the movie.
Anyway, a thought came to me when I first heard about this. We’re two weeks out from San Diego Comic-Con. While Marvel had no comment, they still let this out. Something that would be a huge surprise on the main stage presentation. To me, this says that if they’re letting a story of this magnitude out, there can only be even bigger stuff to reveal, and that’s even more exciting.
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Sources: The Hollywood Reporter, CBR