Disney+ Going R-Rated on Daredevil: Born Again is a turning point

According to Chris Snellgrove
| Published 20 seconds ago

There are high hopes for studio executives and fans alike Daredevil: Born Again will be the great Marvel hit that Disney+ desperately needs. There are many reasons to hope the show will be a success, including the return of key actors that made the original Netflix show a fan favorite. For me, however, there is the biggest reason for hope Daredevil: Born Again will be rated TV-MA, representing Disney’s overdue desire to diversify MCU content.

Daredevil Needs To Be Dark

Part of what made Netflix Daredevil show such a hit is that he was not afraid to go extremely dark as needed. We have gory scenes like the Kingpin being murdered by a terry cloth car door and the Punisher murdering almost everyone he comes across on Ryker’s Island. When Daredevil: Born Again was first announced, fans were worried about it Disney would take a lighter, more kid-friendly approach to this brutal franchise. The TV-MA ratings mean it could be as brutal as before, but the main reason I’m excited is that for the first time in a long time, Disney is ready to create different shows for different kinds of audiences.

Well before that Daredevil: Born Again was in production, and before Disney+ even existed, the House of Mouse was releasing Marvel content through various platforms that were aimed at very specific audiences. Younger fans had the show as Cloak and dagger on Freeform and Refugees on Hulu while older fans got more cinematic content on ABC through series like Agents of SHIELD and Agent Carter. Netflix has become the de facto home of mature Marvel content, bringing shows like Daredevil and Jessica Jones which frankly couldn’t be easily viewed anywhere outside of streaming.

However, when Disney+ came along, all the shows were aimed at the same medium audience as the medium Agents of SHIELD were aimed at. This is not inherently a bad thing. Agents of SHIELD was a very solid show on its own and as the first Disney+ show WandaVision and Loki proved that the studio still has great stories to tell. However, it was clear that adult content was not a focus after Disney “accidentally” uploaded a censored episode The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and subsequently gave all of his older Netflix MCUs a content warning.

The New Era of Disney/Marvel TV-MA

Now, Daredevil: Born Again earning a TV-MA rating is proof that Disney is ready to move on to creating more mature content. Clearly, Echo the miniseries was also a TV-MA, but that felt more like a marketing angle for a show that flew under most people’s radar. Born againhowever, is Marvel fans’ most anticipated Disney+ show, and letting such a popular character get another R-rated adventure means the streamer is finally ready to create a more mature show for a more mature audience.

If Daredevil: Born Again It’s proving to be a hit on Disney+, we can get more TV-MA Marvel content. For example, if the Punisher were to get his own revival series, Frank Castle would definitely need this more mature assessment to properly punish his enemies. Other famous characters like Elektra and even Ghost Rider would benefit from having solo series that are not constrained by the need to create family-friendly programming. Plus, since it looks like we might never get a Blade movie, the show could be reborn as Disney+ with all the hilarious and violent profanity of the original Wesley Snipes movies.

Admittedly, this may all be putting the cart before the horse (or should that be the corridor before the hero?). Daredevil: Born Again could very well have flopped on Disney+, especially after the show had to fire its existing writers and directors to creatively retool the entire series. Still, hope springs eternal, and we can only hope that House of Mouse accommodates more of the storytelling diversity that has always made Marvel great. Otherwise, Netflix the Marvel era can be remembered as the last time the franchise was willing to swing for the streaming fences.