Charlie Cox Facing Off Against Vincent D’Onofrio In The MCU?
Are Charlie Cox and Vincent D'Onofrio getting back to their old dance?
This article is more than 2 years old
Actor Charlie Cox has emerged as one of the most beloved on-screen superheroes in the last several years, with his portrayal of blind vigilante/very good lawyer Daredevil (aka Matt Murdock) being the highlight of Netflix’s run of MCU shows. Speaking anecdotally, when I saw Spider-Man: No Way Home in theaters, the entire audience burst into spontaneous, joyous applause when he appeared on screen. The only other character who got close to that reaction was Tobey Maguire, the OG Spider-Man himself, and he’s had 20 years to be lodged in popular culture as a superhero. So it comes as no surprise that not only are the rumors of more appearances by the Man with No Fear quickly building, but hopes for Charlie Cox and Vincent D’Onofrio facing off once again are out there. In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Cox revealed that while he doesn’t know for sure that the two will meet again, he really wants it to happen.
Netflix’s Daredevil show kicked off their take on “street-level” superheroes, to contrast with the high-tech antics of Iron Man/Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) and the cosmic adventures of The Guardians of the Galaxy (Dave Bautista and friends). Daredevil led to solo shows for Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter), Luke Cage (Mike Colter) and Iron Fist (Finn Jones), which ultimately built up to The Defenders, which teamed up all of them against ninjas and Sigourney Weaver. But while the individual shows varied in terms of critical and popular appeal, the conflict between Charlie Cox’s Daredevil and VIncent D’Onofrio’s Kingpin/Wilson Fisk was one of the most consistently intense and praised aspects of the shows. The contrast between Matt Murdock’s conflict between justice and inner rage and Wilson Fisk’s steely, yet tenderly human determination to crush everything in its path was one of the best pairings of heroes and villains yet in the MCU.
Happily, since Charlie Cox has now officially joined the MCU in the box office behemoth that is Spider-Man: No Way Home and Vincent D’Onofrio appeared in the tail end of the Disney+ Hawkeye streaming show, the possibility is now present. Though real life Marvel Studios kingpin Kevin Feige legendarily plans out the phases of the MCU years in advance, he is equally legendary for his secrecy about it. So, unless someone accidentally tells Mark Ruffalo about it, we are not likely to know whether the duo will duke it out any time soon. While Kingpin is traditionally one of Daredevil’s greatest adversaries, he has also been a longtime foe of Spider-Man, so it seems equally likely that he might be facing off against Tom Holland at some point in the future. There is also no word whether Krysten Ritter’s Jessica Jones, Mike Colter’s Luke Cage or anyone playing Iron Fist will show up in the MCU, but anything appears possible at this point. Until then, we will have to wait for the No Way Home DVD release to get the reputed deleted scenes of Daredevil to quench our thirst for Charlie Cox until then.
