If you needed any more reasons to be excited about the MCU‘s upcoming Daredevil series, Daredevil: Born Again, well, you now have it. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the upcoming Disney+ series will feature another returnee in Jon Bernthal, who will be back to portray our favorite anti-hero, Frank Castle, aka The Punisher. Bernthal is now the third actor from the Netflix version of the series who will be reprising their roles, following Charlie Cox and Vincent D’Onofrio, who are both back as the titular vigilante and villain Kingpin respectively.

Bernthal originated The Punisher role back in the second season of the Netflix series Daredevil, which premiered in 2015 and aired for three seasons before getting canceled in 2018. The cancelation had nothing to do with the show’s ratings but was primarily because Marvel‘s parent company Disney had reclaimed the rights to its film and TV projects licensed to Netflix, and was preparing to launch the rival streaming service that became Disney+. Before the arrival of Disney+, Bernthal‘s Punisher received his own titular spin-off series which ran on the streamer for two seasons, ending in early 2019. Bernthal‘s portrayal of Frank Castle, an ex-marine and vengeful father, earned huge praise from fans, who will all be excited to learn of his return in the highly-anticipated series.

Born Again is said to be a continuation of the first Daredevil series, but with Marvel being its usual secretive self, the plotline remains unknown even as the show is gearing up to enter production in the coming weeks. What is known regarding the show’s plot is that it will be based on a titular 1980s storyline from the comics. However, it seems Marvel has a few surprises up its sleeves with the addition of The Punisher, who was originally not part of the story. Said story was a classic good vs evil tale, with Daredevil facing off against the Kingpin.

Bernthal‘s casting won’t be entirely surprising to core Marvel fans as his Daredevil co-star Rosario Dawson first hinted at the character’s return during a 2022 fan event when she said, “I found out yesterday that The Punisher was happening again.” It was a slip that she later retracted via a tweet, but with this official confirmation, it turns out she was right. Bernthal, Cox, and D’Onofrio now officially count as the only Daredevil stars returning to their roles, and it remains to be seen if there will be more. As production is soon to begin, it won’t be long before we get our first look at how things are progressing behind the scenes and maybe even get some more clues about the upcoming series. As always, we’ll be on the lookout for every detail.

Daredevil: Born Again will make up Phase 5 of the MCU and is expected to release on Disney+ in the spring of 2024. Season 1 will include 18 episodes, a large episodic count number by MCU show standards.

via Collider