Daredevil: Born Again finally going before cameras is bringing up a lot of conflicting feelings in Marvel fans. While one dream is coming true in Jon Bernthal returning as the Punisher, many of the fandom’s worst nightmares are also coming to pass, like Elden Henson and Deborah Ann Woll not invited back as Foggy Nelson and Karen Page and key characters already being recast.
Man of Steel‘s Ayelet Zurer will no longer be occupying the role of Vanessa Fisk in Born Again, with Sandrine Holt recently announced to be taking over the part of Wilson Fisk’s beloved opposite Vincent D’Onofrio. While it has been reported that Holt taking over as Vanessa was simply down to Zurer being unable to commit due to her AMC series Moonhaven getting picked up for a second season, naturally Defenders Saga stans are now terrified that more recastings will happen soon enough.
As the Reddit post above demonstrates, with Zurer getting replaced, there’s concern that everyone is now fair game and Marvel can recast whoever they like from Netflix’s Defenders Saga, from Heroes for Hire Luke Cage (Mike Colter) and Iron Fist (Finn Jones) to fan favorite villains like Bullseye (Wilson Bethel). But do the fans really have anything to fear?
Bernthal’s return certainly indicates that Marvel is keen to bring back other Netflix heroes besides Charlie Cox, with rumors also pointing to Krysten Ritter featuring once more as Jessica Jones. Clearly, though, the supporting cast is less important to the studio, hence why Henson and Woll haven’t been rehired. This is obviously a mistake, as the fans love these secondary players as much as the leads in many cases, but unfortunately it seems Marvel doesn’t see it this way.
All in all, then, the big stars of the Defenders Saga appear to be safe for now, but Daredevil: Born Again has already proved that anyone else could be due a rebirth of their own.
