Matthew Lillard Joins ‘Daredevil: Born Again’

The ‘Scream’ and ‘Scooby Doo’ star’s character is being kept under wraps for now, but filming on the season is due to kick off this week.

Matthew Lillard on Prime Video's 'Bosch' season 2. Credit: Aaron Epstein. Copyright: Amazon Studios.

Preview:

Matthew Lillard is joining ‘Daredevil: Born Again.’
His unknown character will first appear in Season 2.
Charlie Cox and Vincent D’Onofrio star in the show.

The first season of the latest Disney/Marvel offering for Disney+, ‘Daredevil: Born Again,’ is only just about to launch on the streaming service, yet plans are already in place for Season Two.

In actual fact, a two-season order has been the idea for some time now (more on that below).

And according to Deadline, we now know at least one person who will join the cast when the second season kicks off shooting this week, as Matthew Lillard is aboard the show.

Quite what he’ll be doing in the ‘Daredevil’ universe is a mystery for now –– in keeping with usual behavior, neither Marvel nor Disney would be drawn on who he is playing.

Current speculation is leaning towards some comic book villains, though as ever with the MCU series, there’s a world of possibilities, and chances are even if he plays someone who has popped up in the Marvel pages, the screen version could be quite different.

What’s the story of ‘Daredevil: Born Again’?

(L to R) Daredevil/Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) and Kingpin/Wilson Fisk (Vincent D'Onofrio) in Marvel Television's 'Daredevil: Born Again', exclusively on Disney+. Photo by Giovanni Rufino. © 2024 Marvel.

A continuation of the ‘Daredevil’ series that aired on Netflix from 2015 to 2018, ‘Born Again’ picks up with our hero Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox), a blind lawyer with heightened abilities, amid a continued fight for justice through his bustling law firm.

At the same time, former mob boss Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio) pursues his own political endeavors in New York. When their past identities begin to emerge, both men find themselves on an inevitable collision course.

Who else is in ‘Daredevil: Born Again’?

(L to R) Daredevil/Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox), Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll), and Foggy Nelson (Elden Henson) in Marvel Television's 'Daredevil: Born Again', exclusively on Disney+. Photo by Giovanni Rufino. © 2024 Marvel.

The series also stars Margarita Levieva, Deborah Ann Woll, Elden Henson, Zabryna Guevara, Nikki James, Genneya Walton, Arty Froushan, Clark Johnson, Michael Gandolfini, with Ayelet Zurer and Jon Bernthal.

Woll, Henson, Zurer and Bernthal, are, of course, veterans of the original series, with Woll and Henson playing Matt’s colleagues Karen Page and Foggy Nelson, Zurer as Fisk’s wife Vanessa and Bernthal as Frank Castle, AKA the violent veteran vigilante known as The Punisher.

It was recently revealed that Bernthal has co-written and will star in a Marvel TV special focused on his character, with ‘King Richard’ director Reinaldo Marcus Green co-writing and directing.

Here’s what Brad Winderbaum, head of Marvel Television, told EW:

“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. It’s so exciting.”

What has happened to ‘Daredevil: Born Again’ so far?

Daredevil/Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) in Marvel Television's 'Daredevil: Born Again', exclusively on Disney+. Photo by Giovanni Rufino. © 2024 Marvel.

After seeding the previously Netflix-based characters of Murdock and Fisk into the MCU via the likes of ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’, ‘Hawkeye’ and ‘She-Hulk’, Marvel was riding high on the reaction to news that the two would be the focus of their own Disney+ series.

‘Daredevil: Born Again’ was supposed to be Marvel triumphantly proving it can take a character that has been brought to TV screens elsewhere and merge them into the wider, more directly canonical comic book-based universe.

Commissioned from writers Chris Ord and Matt Corman, it was set for a mammoth 18-episode shoot and cameras started rolling back in March of 2023.

Yet less than half the episodes had been filmed when the writers’ strike closed down production, and when executives got a look at the footage, they were unimpressed. Ord, Corman and the directors were let go and a new creative team, including Netflix ‘Punisher’ Dario Scardapane as showrunner and ‘Loki’ Season 2 directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, was hired.

We’re finally about to see the fruits of their labors...

Where else can we see Matthew Lillard?

Matthew Lillard in 1996's 'Scream'. Photo: Dimension Films.

Even with a healthy and prolific career, Lillard is probably best known for playing two main roles –– that of Stu in ‘Scream’ and Shaggy in various versions of ‘Scooby Doo,’ but most notably the live-action movies.

He’s returning to both roles in the future; he and Scott Foley were announced at the end of January as joining ‘Scream 7’ (though Lillard’s exact capacity is unknown, since Stu has been dead for years at this point, but that hasn’t been a hurdle for other characters). That movie is set for February 27th next year.

Lillard will be heard as Shaggy in a new Scooby TV series which has yet to confirm a date. Also on the small screen, he’s appearing in the second season of Prime Video’s ‘Cross,’ the adaptation of the James Patterson novels.

Besides any of those, he’s reprising the role of William Afton in ‘Five Nights at Freddy’s 2’, the sequel to 2023’s successful Blumhouse adaptation of the video game franchise. It’ll be out on December 5th.

Next up, he’ll be seen in Mike Flanagan’s Stephen King adaptation ‘The Life of Chuck,’ due out on May 30th.

When will ‘Daredevil: Born Again’ be on our screens?

Season One of the show –– AKA the first nine episodes –– kicks off with its first two installments on Disney+ on March 4th.

Season Two, which as mentioned is only now setting its cameras in motion, and consists of the second batch of nine episodes, will likely debut a year from now if Disney keeps to any sort of annual schedule.