Ahead of next week’s big Daredevil: Born Again premiere, it turns out those rumors are right, and that Jon Bernthal will also be back as The Punisher in a Marvel Disney+ special, described as a standalone show.
What are the details for The Punisher special?
Via THR, Jon Bernthal is co-writing the special with Reinaldo Marcus Green who will also direct and is known for Bob Marley, We Own This City, King Richard, Amend: The Fight For America, and more.
Bernthal is also set to reprise as Frank Castle in Daredevil: Born Again which premieres with its first two episodes on Tuesday, March 4.
The Punisher special will release in 2026 alongside Daredevil: Born Again Season 2.
Not a goofy MCU Punisher
It seems the days of the goofy MCU might be over. Exactly as I first said, Marvel retooled Daredevil: Born Again to make it more in line with the popular Netflix show and move it away from She-Hulk. Deadpool creator Rob Liefeld confirmed my Marvel insiders and said the original plan was to make Daredevil a comedy in the MCU like She-Hulk.
Jon Bernthal even said that he would only join the MCU if the Punisher wasn’t goofy.
“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,” said Bernthal back in 2021 prior to joining the MCU:
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.
