seahammer
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Okay, so, the DAREDEVIL panel. I had to queue up from just after 9am in the morning to be able to get a ticket for the panel when the show opened at 10am. It took until about 10:40, but I got the ticket! Then it was back to queue at 3:30pm in order to have a good seat for the panel at 5:15pm. We got in shortly before start time, and the warm-up guy was quite clearly stalling as he waited for a due. But finally, it was time for the panel to begin!
Jeph Loeb, producer of the show, came out and talked for a while, going through all his thank yous and acknowledgements. Then we got our first clip from the show! Right away you could tell that this show would at least LOOK right, the slick gloss of AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D. replaced with a gritty, grainy film stock. It's a stormy night, and Karen Page enters an abandoned apartment looking for some disk drive. She finds it in a hidden compartment, but once she makes to leave the apartment, a man appears behind her and slams her head against the wall. The thug casually picks up and pockets the drive, then flicks out a knife, walking towards Karen. Behind him, the door swings open, and Matt Murdock appears, dressed in a black suit that looks like a direct recreation of his proto-Daredevil vigilante gear from Frank Miller and John Romita Jr's THE MAN WITHOUT FEAR. Daredevil and the thug then proceed to have a brutal fight scene that is far better choreographed than much of the S.H.I.E.L.D. fight sequences, with some fast-moving martial arts, but also hard-hitting impact. A bit like a less violent version of the fighting style of THE RAID. Eventually, Murdock and the assailant go flying through a boarded-up window and are sent flying out into the streets of Hell's Kitchen, falling one floor, Matt bouncing off a stairway before landing facedown on the ground below. And it feels authentically like a rainy night in Hell's Kitchen, probably because that's where the show was actually filmed. Murdock's senses make the raindrops fall like hammer blows all around him as the scene fades out.
The lights to up, the audience applauds, and they start bringing out the cast. The actor playing Kingpin's henchman Wesley, Bob Gunton as The Owl, Ben Urich, Vanessa, Foggy Nelson, Deborah Ann Woll as Karen Page, Vincent D'Onofrio as The Kingpin (who perhaps got the biggest cheer of anyone) and Charlie Cox as Daredevil, with Loeb saying that Joe Quesada called him two years ago to say that Cox was the guy who should be their Matt Murdock, back before they even had the rights back. Then show runner Steven S. Deknight came out. Loeb said there was one more role to announce, and though she couldn't be here in attendance, Rosario Dawson would be playing Night Nurse... WHICH I TOTALLY PREDICTED AGES AGO WHEN DAWSON WAS FIRST ANNOUNCED! Charlie Cox said she was the heartbeat of the show. We then got our next clip.
Murdock wakes up in Clare's apartment, asking where he is. Clare tells him that she found him unconscious, wearing a mask, with three broken ribs and a possible concussion. He realises his mask is gone, looking annoyed at himself. Clare points out that Murdock shows no reaction to light in his eyes either, meaning he must be blind, then she asks what the hell a blind man was doing lying in garbage with a mask and broken ribs. He says he can't tell her anything, and not to take him to a hospital. She asks him for his name, he won't give it, so she names him Mike. She says his costume sucks, and he replies that it's a work in progress. Then she tells him to rest.
The lights go back up, and all the cast talk about their roles for a bit. The recurring thing that pops up is how character-focused the show is, how it's about internal struggle as much as external action and fight scenes. When we get to the actress playing Vanessa, this cues up another clip, possibly my favourite...
It's a bustling gallery, and Vanessa - presumably the art dealer - is walking through all these moving crowds. Her attention is drawn when she passes one painting and, amidst all this movement, she sees Wilson Fisk, his back to us, standing eerily still. He is looking at a painting which seems to just be a white blank. Vanessa walks up to him, and says the old joke that is you show a child a blank piece of paper and ask them what they see, they'll say they see a rabbit hiding in the snow. No reply from Fisk. She asks him if he's just looking or if he's interested. We see his first movement, a Gus Fring like finger tap, "I'm interested," he says. Vanessa says that some might question the value of buying art that's just gradients of white, but it's not the art itself that's important, but how it makes the viewer feel. She asks Fisk how it makes him feel as the camera slowly revolves around, building to us finally seeing Fisk's face for the first time. He turns to Vanessa and says, "It makes me feel alone." We cut back to the shot of Wilson with his back to us, Vanessa still standing next to him. As he turns to look at the painting once more, the camera slowly draws back. This scene was excellent, you could really feel the influence of the FARGO cinematographer here, and D'Onofrio oozes intensity already.
After the clip, D'Onofrio describes Fisk as "a child... and a monster," and says everything he sets into motion over the course of the series comes from his own inner sense of morality. There is more talk of character complexity here, with Deknight and Loeb discusses how our allegiances will actually shift during the show, with Matt at times seeming like he's going too far, and Fisk actually seeming sympathetic and like a character worth rooting for at points. Deknight said that when Fisk's full plans are revealed, half the audience will agree he's in the right.
We then got a clip of the law offices of angels on and Murdock. Which at this stage are just an empty apartment. Clearly they are only just setting up. Karen thanks them both for helping her so much, and volunteers to be their secretary. She points out they need someone to clean up all the mess, and Murdock jokes by dead panning, "Wait... this apartment isn't tidy?"
We segued into some questions from here. We got the usual questions about what comics influenced the actors. D'Onofrio was vague, but talked about the Frank Miller run being his main inspiration, adding that he returned to the Forbidden Planet store in New Gork he used to take his kids to weekly (this got a cheer) and they gave him a stack of books to read. Charlie Cos x's answer began shaky, him getting stammery and nervous when he began mentioning THE MAN WITHOUT FEAR but clearly forgot the name of John Romita Jr. There was a wince from the crowd when he took a swing and a miss with "Ramada." But he recovered by talking about the Bendis-Maleev run and how he felt that was the primary inspiration for his Daredevil, saying his favourite single issue was the one where Matt Murdock has to represent the White Tiger in court.
Another question was about how Netflix was different from HBO, with a Cox remarking that there was no need for cliffhangers or for catching people up on what happened before, how it's just like an immersive 13-hour movie. Then there were two really sweet questions, one from an old lady who told a story about how kind Jeph Loeb was a year earlier when he found a T-shirt for her, and another, which got a huge applause, from this young boy who says he had a serious chronic illness he was going into hospital for the next day, and how Daredevil was his favourite superhero because of how he dealt with his disability and didn't let it stop him.
To end the panel, we got an extended version of the fight scene from the first clip. After the endpoint of the first time we saw it, we cut to a flashback of young Matt, sleeping over his schoolbooks as his father comes home, beaten up for a night out fighting. Jack Murdock wakes his son up, and talks to him about how he can't give up his studies, saying he never studies, and look where it got him. Jack Murdock takes Matt's hand and guides it to his face, and Matt feels all the cuts and swelling on his father's face, Matt looking horrified as his father silently cries, a drop of blood falling onto the table. We cut back to the present, where Matt is awoken by the thunderous footsteps of the thug coming down the stairway to fight him. Matt jumps to his feet, and the hard-hitting fight resumes. I love the choreography, it looking like both guys are taking a pounding, eventually he fight ends with Matt wrapping the guy I a chain and KOing him. He takes the drive off him, and assures Karen it will find its way to the right people.
Overall, great panel. I would have loved to see the final costume, sure, but what he did see was excellent. I'm even more pumped for this show now!
Awesome, KS! Thanks for sharing that. You mentioned how stammery Cox seemed. I watched an interview with him where he said it was his first Con of any kind, and he seemed really nervous there too. He'll adjust, but for now it kind of made him seem really relatable, being overwhelmed by that environment.
And thanks for the in-depth footage description. I can't wait to see it!
