Jon Bernthal is currently developing a Punisher special for Disney+, which spins off from his return in Daredevil: Born Again.
A new rumor claims the villain of the special will be a female crime boss.
The rumor comes via scooper Daniel RPK. No further details are known.
Punisher Special villain could be Ma Gnucci
Speculation is leading to Ma Gnucci being the villain from the Marvel Comics who is a ruthless mob matriarch and one of the Punisher’s most infamous enemies.
Introduced in The Punisher Vol. 5 #4 (2000) by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon, Ma Gnucci led the Gnucci crime family and became a central figure in the “Welcome Back, Frank” storyline.
In the storyline, when the Punisher resumes his war on crime in New York City, he makes his presence known by killing the three sons of Isabella “Ma” Gnucci, the powerful head of one of the city’s last major Mafia families.
She then seeks revenge, which leads to a confrontation in the Central Park Zoo, where he releases animals to create chaos. Ma is mauled by polar bears, losing her scalp and all four limbs, but survives. Ten days later, she offers a $10 million bounty on the Punisher and brings in a nearly indestructible assassin known as the Russian to finish the job (the Russian appeared in the 2004 film The Punisher, played by Kevin Nash, while Billy Clements recently portrayed him in Deadpool & Wolverine).
Punisher Special details
The Punisher special was first announced back in February, prior to the release of Daredevil: Born Again.
Bernthal is co-writing the special with Reinaldo Marcus Green, who will also direct and is known for directing Bernthal in We Own This City.
Previously, Brad Winderbaum, Marvel’s head of TV and Animation said the special is “so exciting.”
“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,” he said.
Bernthal enormously protective of the Punisher
Back in 2021, prior to joining the MCU, Jon Bernthal said that The Punisher carries a deep meaning to him, offering he would only return to the character if done right:
That character, in particular, has real, real, real deep, deep meaning for me and resonance in me. He’s really in my heart, man. He’s really in my bones. I’m enormously protective of that character. I’ve said before that there’s nothing in this world more important to me than my wife and my kids, and only until you understand that kind of love and what it really means to willingly die for somebody, [do you understand] what it would be like if somebody took them from you. That’s a road and a darkness and a rage that really, really scares me and brings me to places that I’ve worked the last 20 years to get away from. So I was really grateful, respectful and weary of the places where that role took me and the world in which I had to live in.
That being said, that’s where that character needs to be. It needs to be a level of darkness. I think if there’s any let up on that character, you do a disservice to the character, to every iteration of the character, to every comic book that’s come before, and to all of the unbelievable fans of the character. This character means so much to people in the military. So like I said before, it’s not about whether you do the character; it’s about whether you can do it right, and I’m only interested in doing it right.
What’s next for Jon Bernthal?
Jon Bernthal has The Accountant 2 now out, which also stars Ben Affleck. Bernthal is also starring in Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey. He’s also listed as being involved in pre-production on His & Hers and Snow Ponies.
Daredevil: Born Again Season 2 is also in the works.
