Making television is a business — and every business manages theirs as they see fit. And back in 2005, the budget for Netflix's Daredevil was not exactly unlimited. It's not like the streamer had, say, Disney money to mess around with when it waded into Marvel's superhero waters. But twenty years later, Daredevil: Born Again does have Disney money to throw around. And that is, apparently, exactly why the show looks so much better to fans returning to the world of Matt Murdock. At least according to former Daredevil showrunner .

The showrunner tweeted the frank comment in response to a fan-made compilation video posted to X on March 27, 2025, which showed the Charlie Cox-fronted hero "becoming more agile and acrobatic/moving more like comic daredevil ever since he got into the MCU." (The latter part of this comment is in reference to the Netflix/Marvel heroes being officially retconned into the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe, of which they were not technically a part until well after those series ended.)

According to DeKnight, the reason is a simple one:

"It's purely a financial issue. On the Netflix show, we didn't have the money to do this. If we had, we would have."

But what does the showrunner mean by that, and how can he say so with any sort of authority, given that he wasn't in charge of running Born Again? Keep reading below to learn more (and see the video he was responding to, too).

It should be noted that DeKnight is not the showrunner for Born Again — that honor goes to Dario Scardapane — but he does know a thing or two about what it takes to bring Daredevil to screen, given that he created the original series. (And he'd done plenty more action-oriented stuff, like Spartacus, before that.) And while he does not specify what particular area of the budget would have allowed for his series to look better — is it CGI? Choreography? Costumes? Camera equipment or something else entirely? — his reasoning certainly makes sense.

Marvel productions are behemoths, which is saying something when you consider how large any film or television series is when it goes into production. It takes hundreds, if not thousands of people, to make something look good — from writers to directors to actors to directors of photography to production designers to costumers to camera operators to editors and so, so many more. It makes sense that the budget limitations, be they personal or technical, make all the difference in how a series ends up looking on-screen. And it also makes sense that DeKnight knows these struggles intimately, having worked on a number of big-name, blockbuster productions in film and television.

Whatever the reason, fans are undoubtedly grateful for the series' new and improved return. Now when are we going to see Matt Murdock on the big screen, though? Surely one of the Avengers is going to need a lawyer soon, right?

Source:

X