The original Daredevil showrunner, Steven S. DeKnight who worked on the show for Marvel TV when it was distributed on Netflix, shared that he wished he could have made it more degenerate like the recently released Daredevil: Born Again series on Disney+.
When asked by The Direct if there was anything that Daredevil: Born Again did that he wish he would have done, DeKnight answered, “I wanted to be more R-rated. They were able to go there, whereas I had the PG-16 handcuffs on, where I could only go so far.”
“And as you can see from [’Spartacus: House of Ashur’], I like to go pretty far. So, I really appreciated that Marvel and Disney+ was willing to go there. That honestly surprised me and delighted me,” he added.
First off, the Daredevil series received a TV-MA rating, which is the most severe warning from the TV Parental Guidelines. The organization’s brief description of the rating states, “Mature Audiences Only: This program is specifically designed to be viewed by adults and there may be unsuitable for children under 17. This program may contain on or more of the following: crude indecent language (L), explicit sexual activity (S), or graphic violence (V).
The Daredevil series most definitely featured indecent language. IMDB’s Parents Guide for the show indicates that a number of curse words are used including the f-word and the b-word as well as the middle finger being shown at least twice.
The series was also known for its violence especially from the Kingpin. In one scene he smashes one of his own henchman’s head in a car door repeatedly. It also featured hallway scenes where Daredevil typically takes down a number of thugs in brutal fashion albeit without killing them.
As for the explicit sexual activity, it has a mild rating on IMDB with the show primarily referencing sex rather than showing it.
Given the show’s TV-MA rating and its graphic violence, one can only imagine that DeKnight wished he could feature more debauchery and hedonism in the show especially of the explicitly sexual nature. IMDB’s Parent’s Guide for it indicates that the Sex & Nudity is severe with “severe sex/orgies & sever full nudity with prosthetics used for males.”
DeKnight also had a very different opinion about this topic just a decade ago. He told The Hollywood Reporter, “They are fine going for the more mature audience. There is, however, some self-regulation on my side and Marvel’s side. None of us wanted to take this to an R-rated show. The Daredevil character warrants things being grittier and a little more violent. I didn’t want to take it to an R-rating.”
“I often use a show that I love as an example, AMC’s The Walking Dead. The violence in their show is what I would call very R-rated; it’s very graphic, and I love it,” he continued. “We didn’t want to go quite that far on Daredevil. You’ll notice a lot of the violence is visceral and impactful but more suggestive than graphic.”
He then gave an example, “In episode four, Wilson Fisk loses control and has a run-in with the Russian. It’s very disturbing and definitely more violent than something you will see in a Marvel movie. Because of that, it makes it feel more graphic than it is. We were still cognizant of the fact that we didn’t want to push it all the way to the envelope.”
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Is this guy responsible for Niggicus: House of Ashy Skin???