Daredevil: Born Again’s Ratings Disaster – Can Season 2 Save the Day?

by

Pray for Matt Murdock as the Marvel series “Daredevil: Born Again” didn’t make it to the top 10 list of original streaming shows by Nielsen, becoming the first Marvel Television production to miss out on their streaming charts. In contrast, the spinoff of “WandaVision”, titled “Agatha All Along”, which was the first series under the new Marvel Television banner, recorded a staggering 426 million minutes in its premiere week and consistently charted throughout its nine-episode run. Therefore, the revival of the Daredevil series, initially aired on Netflix, is currently the only live-action MCU show without this achievement.

In the scorching summer of 2023, I found myself among the many captivated viewers who propelled “Secret Invasion” to break into the top 10 most-watched shows, clocking an astounding 461 million minutes of viewing – roughly equivalent to 8.54 million episodes streamed. Fast forward to January 2024, and the arrival of “Echo” sent ripples through the streaming world as it debuted at number 10 with a staggering 731 million minutes under its belt. A fascinating tidbit: Both shows, available on both Disney+ and Hulu, shared the stage, with “Echo” marking the first Marvel series to release its entire bingeable season all at once. Additionally, “Echo” was Marvel Studios’ pioneering TV-MA rated show, with “Daredevil: Born Again” following suit as the second.

In the initial five days after its release on March 4, “Daredevil: Born Again”‘s two-episode series premiere garnered 7.5 million views on the streaming platform. This figure is calculated as total watch time divided by each episode’s duration. It marked the biggest premiere of the year for Disney+, yet it didn’t quite match up to “Loki” season 2 (10.9 million views over a span of three days) and “Agatha All Along” (9.3 million views over seven days), outperforming its own numbers in the given time frame.

In “Born Again,” the initial Marvel Studios project under Kevin Feige, we see the introduction of Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) and Kingpin Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio) into the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe. This integration started with their appearances in “Spider-Man: No Way Home” and “Hawkeye,” both released in 2021. Cox reprised his role in “She-Hulk: Attorney at Law” in 2022, and again in “Echo.” In this latter series, Fisk played a more significant part and laid the groundwork for his mayoral campaign in the upcoming series, “Born Again.

10 years after Marvel’s Daredevil first premiered on Netflix, the highly-anticipated series Born Again welcomed back familiar faces such as Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll), Foggy Nelson (Elden Henson), Vanessa Fisk (Ayelet Zurer), and Frank Castle/the Punisher (Jon Bernthal). Joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe for the first time are actors like Zabryna Guevara, Nikki James, Genneya Walton, Arty Froushan, Clark Johnson, and Michael Gandolfini.

Krysten Ritter, known for her roles as Jessica Jones in three seasons of the Netflix series that bears her name and in The Defenders, has now been added to the cast for Daredevil: Born Again season 2, which is currently being filmed. This upcoming second season is set to premiere on Disney+ in March 2026, marking a move by Marvel TV towards annual releases of new seasons in a more conventional format.

Instead of the initial season, which was revamped following the departure of head writers Chris Ord and Matt Corman, showrunner Dario Scardapane (from “The Punisher”) began crafting the second season with a fresh perspective right from the beginning.

In his latest chat, Cox expressed his genuine enthusiasm about “Daredevil: Born Again” season 2. He admitted that he might sound overly positive, but he genuinely believes it’s some of the finest writing they’ve done for the show. He even texted the showrunner, Dario, to convey his admiration for the work so far, acknowledging they are still in the middle of filming, but emphasizing the impressive quality of the script.

Cox mentioned that he’s thrilled because this time around, the character development is more thorough, giving less prominent characters their due attention, making the show feel more like a team effort than ever before.

Read More

2025-05-29 19:43