Jon Berthanl’s Frank Castle is making his return after season one of the upcoming Disney+ series Daredevil: Born Again, donning his iconic vest once more in a one-shot special of The Punisher.
As reported by Entertainment Weekly, Bernthal will also pen the special’s script alongside its director Reinaldo Marcus Green (Bob Marley: One Love, King Richard), and will follow in the vein of other Marvel specials like 2022’s The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special, albeit less family-friendly considering the Punisher’s tendency to leave a trail of bloody violence in his wake.
“It’s like a shotgun blast of a story, but also has all the pathos and emotion that you want out of a Frank Castle story,” said head of Marvel Television Brad Winderbaum, “[It’s] incredible what [Bernthal] brings to all the roles he plays, but particularly Frank Castle. And he’s a great writer. He knows the character inside and out. The idea that he’s in the MCU and can bring that to the greater universe, especially the more grounded street-level stuff, is a huge opportunity and, as a fan, the greatest thing ever.”
Originally taking on the antihero role in season two of the 2015 Netflix series Daredevil, Bernthal would go on to star in his own spin-off series The Punisher, which ran for two seasons from 2017 to 2019. The star is also set to make an appearance in the Disney+ revival Daredevil: Born Again, which releases on 4 March, joining a returning cast of Charlie Cox as Matt Murdock, Deborah Ann Woll as Karen Page, Elden Henson as Foggy Nelson and Vincent D’Onofrio as Wilson Fisk.
That’s not the end of Disney+’s ambitious goals though, as the platform looks set to integrate more characters from Netflix’s The Defenders into the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), namely Krysten Ritter’s Jessica Jones, Mike Colter’s Luke Cage, and Finn Jones’ Iron Fist. “I can’t say much,” Winderbaum previously teased, “I can just say that all those variables taken into account, it is certainly something that is creatively extremely exciting and that we are very much exploring.”
Kevin is a reformed PC Master Race gamer with a penchant for franchise “duds” like Darksiders III and Dead Space 3. He has made it his life-long mission to play every single major game release – lest his wallet dies trying.
Ting Wei
