Back in the days before Marvel was in control of its movies, the firm licenced out its characters to a variety of studios. Thus, Fox got the rights to make X-Men, Fantastic Four and Daredevil, whilst Sony picked up the Spider-Man rights. As long as the films kept coming along, the assorted studios held onto the rights. If the films didn’t, then the rights would ultimately lapse, and head back to Marvel.
It’s been little secret that Fox has been trying to put a new Daredevil movie together, as the deadline for it to get a fresh movie into production approached. But Variety has now revealed that it’s failed in its quest to do so, and that the rights to Daredevil will indeed be heading back to Marvel, and thus Disney.
Fox had reportedly asked for an extension, which was rejected. And this comes after director Joe Carnahan, riding high after this year’s The Grey, had put together a pitch for a new Daredevil movie. However, as he Tweeted, “DD pitch was tremendous and everyone flipped for it. The clock ticked down at Fox, that's why it went tits up”.
Carnahan then went further, too, and posted a pair of ‘sizzle’ pieces, which formed his pitch for the film. You can see those just a bit further down.
Where does this all leave Daredevil? Well, don’t expect a film anytime soon. Just because Marvel has the rights back under its own control, that doesn’t mean it’s got much room in its schedule to do anything with them for some time yet. The Marvel slate seems pretty much in place until 2015/2016 already. Daredevil now has quite a wait on his hands.
Here’s Carnahan’s pitch – in his words, the NC-17 version, and the PG-13 version…
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