Though Jon Bernthal’s Punisher, a.k.a. Frank Castle, hasn’t made his debut on Netflix’s Daredevil yet (the second season premieres in March), apparently the streaming giant has been very happy with his work, and is considering a spinoff series. Neither Marvel nor Netflix have officially commented yet, but Netflix could make an announcement tomorrow at their TCA panel.
TV Line reports that their sources believe the series will happen, though executive producer Doug Petrie recently told EW that
“Viewers watching the show will be rooting for this guy with a gun but we’re also going to force people to second-guess themselves. Taking lethal justice into your own hands in America in 2015 is tricky s–t.”
After the success of the first seasons of Daredevil and Jessica Jones, Netflix seems ready to triple-down on its Marvel series, which already include the upcoming Luke Cage, Iron Fist, and The Defenders. All of them connect, but there may be reasons to keep splitting off certain stories. Marco Ramirez, who is a co-showrunner with Petrie, explained in the EW interview some of the differences between Daredevil’s Matt Murdoch (Charlie Cox) and Bernthal’s Punisher that might be a key reason for each to have his own show:
“He has a different moral code,” he says. “Matt is a devout Catholic — and you rarely see a character who’s a devotee anything on TV. Frank has Hammurabi’s Code. It’s like letting a great white shark into the water.”
Bernthal added in a second interview:
“One of the things I’m most excited for is I’m hoping the audience will go back and forth. There are things you can identify with and get behind,and there are things when the character pushes it and you can’t get behind him anymore. And that’s what I want. I think that’s the nature of the character. This is a guy who pushes the envelope. He’s brutal, but he’s coming from a place of unbelievable hurt. And the best thing about the character is he just doesn’t care. It’s a highly personal mission he’s on and if he offends you, it’s completely unimportant to him.”
Stay tuned for more updates about the potential spinoff, but in the meantime, what do you guys think? Bernthal certainly feels the pressure of the role, revealing that, ”People have been coming up to me on the streets of New York saying, ‘Do not mess this up.’”
Daredevil Season 2 premieres March 18th on Netflix.
