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Wuh-Oh: Daredevil Showrunner Steven S. DeKnight Drops the “G” Word

Can we not?

affleck daredevil

The “g” word, of course, being “gorgonzola.” Nahhh, I’m just kidding. Daredevil‘s going to be gritty, you guys.

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Speaking with Paste Magazine, Daredevil showrunner Steven S. DeKnight had this to say about the upcoming Netflix show:

“With this version of Daredevil, we wanted it to be grounded, gritty, as realistic as we could portray. That naturally fits in with the Daredevil character. Matt Murdock, on a regular basis, would get the shit beat out of him. That’s one thing that makes him a great character. He’s not super strong. He’s not invulnerable. In every aspect, he’s a man that’s just pushed himself to the limits, he just has senses that are better than a normal humans. He is human. The other thing that really drew me to this character is that he’s one of the most morally grey of the heroes.

None of this sounds that bad on its own, but any time I hear the word “gritty” applied to a superhero property, I rear back from my screen in horror. It’s instinctual at this point. We’ve just had so much grimdark since Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy burst onto the scene. One of the good things about Marvel Entertainment’s projects is their distinct lack of grit, the fact that—unlike DC/Warner Bros.—they keep the fun in the superhero genre. That said, “gritty” has all but turned into a meaningless buzzword, so DeKnight using it here doesn’t necessarily mean we’re looking at a humorless series where Daredevil growls and broodily punches baddies in a monochromatic cityscape.

Plus, we’re talking about Steven DeKnight, creator of Spartacus, here. If his definition of gritty is “violent with a lack of moral simplicity,” then technically Spartacus could be considered gritty too, even though I absolutely wouldn’t call it that. It was too… fun. You get a slo-mo blood splatter! And you get a slo-mo blood splatter!

DeKnight elaborated on the “morally grey” comment, explaining that Daredevil (Charlie Cox) is “a lawyer by day, and he’s taken this oath. But every night he breaks that oath, and goes out and does very violent things.”

“The image that always stuck in my mind was the Frank Miller Elektra run where he’s holding Bullseye over the street, and he lets Bullseye go because he doesn’t want Bullseye to ever kill anyone again. When I read that originally, when I was young, I’d never seen anything like that in comics. Superman scoops up the villain and puts them in jail. This time the hero didn’t do that. It was a morally grey ground that I found absolutely fascinating. There are two sides to this character. He’s literally one bad day away from becoming the The Punisher! Frank Castle went just a little bit further than he did. Daredevil has no qualms about beating the hell out of somebody. He’s not going to tie them up with his webs! He’ll come close to killing somebody. And it’s that fine edge—Why doesn’t he go all the way? I really liked the flawed heroes, the human heroes.

Don’t let me down, Steven.

(via ComingSoon.Net)

Previously in Daredevil

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