Daredevil: Born Again will end with season 3, and Marvel has not said who is finishing it

Daredevil: Born Again will end with season 3, and Marvel has not said who is finishing it
Image credit: Disney+ / Netflix

Charlie Cox has played this character across two studios, two streamers and three separate writing teams since 2015. The run now has an end date, and the person who was steering it toward that end is no longer employed on the show.

The third season of the Disney+ series will be its last, The Hollywood Reporter reported on Monday, citing sources. Marvel had no comment. The decision lands roughly two months after that season finished filming, which means the ending was settled after the cameras stopped rather than written toward.

The same report carries the detail that complicates it. Marvel has parted ways with showrunner Dario Scardapane: his contract was up and was not renewed, and he is leaving in the middle of post-production. Nobody has been named to see the season through. One source told the trade that post is in its final stages.

Daredevil (2016) — Charlie Cox with Elodie Yung's Elektra in the Netflix run, which managed three seasons under one creative team before Disney+ rebuilt the show twice
Daredevil (2016) — Charlie Cox with Elodie Yung's Elektra in the Netflix run, which managed three seasons under one creative team before Disney+ rebuilt the show twice. Image credit: Disney+ / Netflix

It leaves the story in an awkward place. Season two, which ran in the spring, ended with Matt Murdock in prison, and Wilson Fisk — now mayor of New York — going after Daredevil and every other vigilante in his way. Whatever answer season three gives, it will be delivered by a production whose showrunner is no longer attached to it.

The show had already been rebuilt once

Born Again was greenlit in July 2022 as a single eighteen-episode season, with Matt Corman and Chris Ord as head writers. Their version was more episodic and lighter in tone than the Netflix show. When the 2023 strikes halted production, Marvel used the pause for a creative reset: Corman and Ord were let go, and Scardapane, a writer and executive producer on Marvel's Netflix Punisher series, replaced them.

Ordered as eighteen episodes under one set of showrunners. Delivered as seventeen, split across two seasons, under another. Now ending after a third, with neither showrunner in place.

Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, who had directed on Loki and Moon Knight, came aboard as directors and executive producers in the same reset, a change Variety also reported on Monday. The original order was split in two, and what actually aired was nine episodes in season one and eight in season two.

  • July 2022 — greenlit as one eighteen-episode season
  • 2023 — strikes stop production, Marvel resets the writing team
  • Season 1 — nine episodes
  • Season 2 — eight episodes, ending with Murdock imprisoned
  • Season 3 — filmed, now the last, due in 2027
Read more: Lanterns episode 6 put Carol Ferris at Hal Jordan's funeral, 15 years after Blake Lively played her

What Marvel has left on Disney+

Not a great deal, on the current books. VisionQuest, the last part of the WandaVision trilogy with Paul Bettany, arrives in October. Born Again's final season is scheduled for 2027. After that the slate is empty, and Wonder Man was un-renewed after Disney+ had already picked up a second season.

Marvel Television has been steadily reducing how many shows it makes for Disney+, and after 2027 there is currently nothing on the schedule at all.

That is the visible half. The company keeps three to five live-action shows in development at any time, and according to the same report it has just greenlit a spy thriller being referred to as Zodiac. What the title refers to is not clear even to the people reporting it.

The obvious comics candidate is the Zodiac organisation: a criminal outfit run by a villain called Scorpio, with operatives themed to the twelve signs, best known for repeatedly going up against S.H.I.E.L.D. Whether that is what Marvel means, or whether Zodiac is simply a working title chosen because it sounds like nothing in particular, is exactly the sort of thing a studio does not clarify this early.

What the announcement settles is narrower: one more season, a date in 2027, and a finale that will be completed by whoever Marvel puts in the chair next.

Read more: Avengers: Endgame Encore has two runtimes, and the cheaper ticket gets three minutes less
TV
🧡
😁
👏
🤔
😡
Crush of the day
Lady Gaga - Crush of the day
Lady Gaga From: Wednesday, American Horror Story

We're excited for Mother Monster's return to screens!

or
Hot (54%) Not (46%)