A Man Without Fear Is In A World of Shit: Vincent D’Onofrio Cast In Daredevil

It has been really easy to crap on Marvel Studios recently for their botched handling of Ant-Man in the aftermath of original director Edgar Wright leaving that project a couple of weeks ago. In fact, it’s been so easy that it can be easy to forget that the way Marvel Studios got themselves into a position where they have a multi-billion dollar intellectual property empire to defend: by poring over the remains of Jack Kirby’s life’s work without having to pay his estate a plugged nickel!

Whoops! I meant that Marvel Studios originally got to where they are by generally hiring top shelf, yet often unexpected, talent to work on their projects. For example, it’s easy to forget in 2014 that, back in 2007, Robert Downey Jr. was best remembered by the general public as being a drugsucking multiple felon whose most recent on-screen triumph was a comeback on Ally McBeal, from which he had been fired for getting arrested for the fourth time. However, somebody at Marvel Studios remembered that the guy also had been nominated for Academy Awards and Golden Globes, so we all wound up with a compelling dude to play Iron Man.

Well, Marvel Studios is still working that way, at least when it comes to the talent they put in front of the camera. In addition to their slate of movies, they are working on a few TV series that are scheduled to premiere on Netflix in 2015, including Daredevil. Now a couple of weeks ago, they announced that they’d cast Charlie Cox as Matt Murdock (to which we responded by exclaiming a resounding, “who?”), but today they made another announcement. They’ve cast their Wilson Fisk. And it’s a choice that made me a little more excited for this show.

Marvel and Netflix are proud to announce that acclaimed actor Vincent D’Onofrio has joined “Marvel’s Daredevil,” an all-new 13-episode series premiering on Netflix in 2015. Best known for his critically-lauded work in “Law & Order: Criminal Intent,” “Men in Black, “Full Metal Jacket” and “Homicide,”  D’Onofrio will play Wilson Fisk, a powerful businessman whose interests in the future of Hell’s Kitchen will bring him into conflict with the blind attorney Matt Murdock and his alter ego Daredevil…

“We’re incredibly proud to have an actor with the gravitas and versatility of Vincent joining ‘Marvel’s Daredevil’ in such an integral role,” said Jeph Loeb, Marvel’s Head of Television. “Wilson Fisk is an iconic villain whose cunning and power make him the dangerous equal of our hero.”

You can say what you want about D’Onofrio’s big, overblown bad guy in Men In Black, but he was the only thing that made any iteration of Law & Order watchable for the last decade or so, and the episode of Homicide he guest starred in was one of the finest hours of television of the 1990s.

Daredevil will be released on Netflix sometime next year.