Jon Bernthal Coming Back as The Punisher in ‘Daredevil: Born Again’
As production kicks off on the highly-anticipated Daredevil: Born Again, more people are joining the cast. In this case, it’s another instance of fan-favorite actors in their previous roles, as Jon Bernthal is reportedly reprising his role as The Punisher from the Netflix series, much like Charlie Cox and Vincent D’Onofrio as Matt Murdock and Wilson Fisk, respectively.
The confirmation comes to us via The Hollywood Reporter, and the actor himself posted on Instagram shortly afterwards an image of himself as Frank Castle, seemingly confirming the news. On the flip side, the trade is also reporting that Deborah Ann Woll and Elden Henson will not be coming back as Karen and Foggy, respectively, from the Netflix series. It is unknown whether they will be recast or their characters do not play a part in this story — if recast, they would be the first significant roles transitioned from the Netflix era of Marvel TV into the current stage of Disney Plus but with different actors.
So far, Bernthal is the third actor to move over to Disney Plus after Cox and D’Onofrio. We’ve already seen Cox back as Matt Murdock in Spider-Man: No Way Home and then playing a small role in two episodes of She-Hulk, where he started a romantic relationship with series lead, Jennifer Walters aka She-Hulk. Murdock’s alter ego, Daredevil, also had a significant part in one of those two episodes. Meanwhile, D’Onofrio returned as Wilson Fisk/Kingpin in the last two episodes of Hawkeye, which aired in late 2021. Both actors will be back in the upcoming Echo, which spins off from Hawkeye, and where their roles are expected to be large. That series, which is currently undated (though star Alaqua Cox recently hinted could be coming out in October), will set up next year’s Daredevil: Born Again.
Born Again was announced last year to be 18 episodes long and to be coming in the spring of 2024. However, with so much to film, the series is expected to be in production in New York all year long, meaning that Marvel will be going back to the old TV shooting models of working out post-production on a show while it’s still filming. Even then, considering how many projects the studio is pushing back at the moment, it is a giant question mark whether they will be able to air the series by spring of next year.
For instance, four different live-action series are currently in post-production at Marvel, and only two are reportedly guaranteed to be released this year — Secret Invasion and Loki season 2. Echo and Ironheart remain up in the air at this point.
Going back to Jon Bernthal, it’s unknown what the size of his role in Born Again is, but we assume it will probably not be just a cameo. Kevin Feige recently said in an interview with Entertainment Weekly that he would love to go back to the old-school TV way of having a large number of episodes that tell a complete story within each one while also threading an overall narrative that builds up over time. Daredevil: Born Again seems like a perfect way to implement that philosophy, but whether Frank Castle will be a one-time-only client of Matt Murdock’s or a recurring character throughout all season, we don’t know yet.
The actor played The Punisher in season 2 of Netflix’s Daredevil series, and would also later headline two seasons of its own spin-off, The Punisher, which aired from 2017 to 2019. He was most recently seen in American Gigolo, The Bear, and We Own This City.
Matt Corman and Chris Ord are writers and executive producers on Daredevil: Born Again. The cast so far includes Michael Gandolfini, Margarita Levieva, and Sandrine Holt.
Miguel Fernández is a Spanish student that has movies as his second passion in life. His favorite movie of all time is The Lord of the Rings, but he is also a huge Star Wars fan. However, fantasy movies are not his only cup of tea, as authors like Scorsese, Fincher, Kubrick or Hitchcock have been an obsession for him since he started to understand the language of filmmaking. He is that guy who will watch a black and white movie, just because it is in black and white.
