Actor Vincent D’Onofrio has been playing Wilson Fisk, The Kingpin, for over ten years now. First it was three seasons of “Daredevil” on Netflix and multiple appearances in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, including turning up in the Disney+ series’ “Hawkeye,” “Echo” and of course, the most recent “Daredevil: Born Again.”
READ MORE: ‘Daredevil’ Review: Marvel Transforms Soap Opera Into Prestige Drama In Visceral, Much Improved ‘Born Again’ Series
But those expecting him to turn up in movies, perhaps in “Spider Man 4,” aka “Spider-Man: Brand New Day”—as many fans have speculated— will be disappointed. According to D’Onofrio, Kingpin can’t appear in Marvel movies.
. “It’s a very hard thing to do, for Marvel to use my character. It’s a very hard thing to do, because of ownership and stuff,” the actors said in an interview with Happy Sad Confused this week.
“I’m only usable for television shows … Not even a one-off Wilson Fisk movie,” he revealed. It’s all caught up in rights and stuff. I don’t know when that would work out — or if it ever would work out at all”
So, scratch Fisk from appearing in “Avengers: Doomsday” or any other upcoming Marvel movies until the issue is resolved.
So why is Daredevil allowed to appear in Marvel movies as a 20th Century Fox character and Kingpin is not? It’s not confirmed, but Kingpin may actually be a Sony character under the Spider-Man deal, as he is one of Spidey’s foes. Fox may have licensed the character to Fox for 2003’s “Daredevil” starring Ben Affleck with Michael Clarke Duncan as Wilson Fisk, but that deal may not have carried over into today’s landscape, especially given how lucrative superhero films and rights are now.
The original 2015 “Daredevil” Netflix original had three seasons and ended in 2018 just shy of 40 episodes.
Season one of “Daredevil: Born Again” is currently airing week-to-week on Disney+ and will premiere its finale on April 15, 2025. A season two is already underway and went into production earlier this year.
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D’Onofrio couldn’t say much about it, but promised that Fisk and Charlie Cox’s Matt Murdock/Daredevil would have much more screentime to face off against each other in season two. Watch the full interview below.
