With the return of Charlie Cox as Daredevil, Marvel fans are hungry for more news about other potential returns. Now, at the recent C2E2 convention, Rosario Dawson may have let slip the return of Jon Bernthal’s The Punisher.
Dawson played Claire Temple in theNetflix-producedDefendersuniverseand is currently filming theAhsokaseries for the Disney Plus streaming service. Dawson was appearing at C2E2, a Chicago-based Comic-Con, as a guest and let the potential bombshell slip during a panel on Sunday.
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Dawson swiftly took to Twitter on late Sunday to walk back her slip of the tongue, saying a fan told herThe Punisherwould be returning. She got overly excited at the prospect of working with Bernthal on aPunisherproject, as it was the oneDefendersuniverse show that she hadn’t got to work on. Watch the original video below, then take a look at the tweet from Dawson’s Twitter late Sunday. Bernthal starred in the Netflix seriesadaptation ofThe Punisheras Frank Castle, a vigilante anti-hero looking to take revenge on those who murdered his family. In the universe ofThe Defenders, Castle made his debut during the second season ofDaredevil, leading to his spinoff show shortly after. The show was short-lived despite positive reviews and was cancelled after its second season.
No statement has been made by Marvel Studios on the return of the skull-emblazoned vigilante, but it would make sense were it to happen.The Defendersuniverse has slowly been starting to show up in the MCU, starting when Vincent D’Onofrio made an appearance in the first season ofHawkeyeand Charlie Cox reprised his role as Matt Murdock inSpider-Man: No Way Home. Both will be reprising their roles in the upcoming seriesDaredevil: Born Again, due to be released in 2024. It has also been announced that Cox will be reprising his role as Matt Murdock inthe upcoming animated seriesSpider-Man: Freshman Year, due for release in 2024, and the Disney Plus live-action seriesEcho.
Apart from the poorly reviewedIron Fistseries, the NetflixDefendersgroup of television series was very well received by fans and critics alike. Never officially recognized by Marvel Studios as part of the MCU as it existed at the time, it would appear that Marvel Studios has an over-arching plan to integrate at least some of the Defenders characters into the new MCU in the post-Avengers: Endgameworld.
With the introduction of the multiverse concept into the mix, it’s unclear whetherthe integration of Daredeviland potentially Frank Castle could be attributed to the universe melding mishaps of recent films or if they have simply been there in the shadows the whole time that the Avengers saga played out. With D23 on the horizon, it remains to be seen whether there will be a statement from Disney and Marvel Studios on the return of Frank Castle off the back of Rosario Dawson’s comments.
The Punisherseasons 1-2 are now available on Disney Plus.
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