Twelve years before Charlie Cox brought Matt Murdock to life in Netflix's Daredevil series, Ben Affleck played The Man Without Fear in director Mark Steven Johnson's 2003 movie adaptation of the Marvel comic book superhero. Affleck was a hot commodity at the time thanks to his roles in hits like Armageddon and Pearl Harbor a few years earlier, but was far from the only big-name approached to star in Johnson's film.
The film version of Daredevil entered development in 1997, with Chris Columbus lined up to direct until Johnson took his place in the early 2000s. Interestingly, Affleck was originally eyed to portray the film's villain Bullseye, while Colin Farrell was in the running to play Matt Murdock. In the end, however, the pair switched roles, with Affleck bringing Daredevil to life and Farrell playing the infamously accurate assassin. The two were joined by Affleck's Armageddon costar Michael Clarke Duncan as Kingpin, Jennifer Garner as Elektra Natchios and a pre-Iron Man Jon Favreau as Franklin "Foggy" Nelson.
Among the other actors who were considered to play Daredevil in Johnson's movie were Affleck's real-life friend and Good Will Hunting co-writer/costar Matt Damon. In a 2016 interview with Peter Travers, Damon explained that he and Affleck were both big fans of the Daredevil character, but he "didn't love the script" and wasn't familiar with Johnson, so he passed on the movie. And while Damon hasn't starred in a superhero film since then, he did make an amusing uncredited cameo in Thor: Ragnarok as the nameless Asgardian actor who plays the Trickster God in a reenactment of the events of Thor: The Dark World.
Guy Pearce and Edward Norton were also in the running to portray Matt Murdock at one point or another before Affleck signed on. When interviewed by Vulture in 2012, Pearce explained that the role of Daredevil just wasn't something he was interested in at the time and admitted, "I still don't know that I would want to play the superhero myself." Instead, he went on to make his superhero movie debut as Iron Man 3's villain, Aldrich Killian. Norton, on the other hand, ended up joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe, where he played Bruce Banner in 2008's The Incredible Hulk, prior to being replaced by Mark Ruffalo in the role.
Matthew Davis was similarly one of the top picks to star in Daredevil and was reportedly the first in line for the lead role behind Affleck. He hasn't appeared in a Marvel movie since then, but did play a superhero of sorts when he boarded The Vampire Diaries as vampire hunter Alaric Saltzman, a role he reprised in the show's two spinoffs, The Originals and Legacies. Finally, Vin Diesel was also considered to play Matt Murdock in Johnson's film, but passed in favor of The Chronicles of Riddick. Years later, he lent his voice to Groot in Guardians of the Galaxy and starred as the namesake of Sony's Valiant Comics movie Bloodshot.
When Johnson's Daredevil finally released with Affleck in the title role, the movie was a modest box office success that earned middling reviews, with the critics consensus on Rotten Tomatoes describing it as "sporadically interesting [but] ultimately a dull, brooding origin story" for The Man Without Fear. However, the film's reputation has improved in the years since then thanks to the release of an R-rated director's cut that added some 30 minutes of additional material and was far better received critically. For his part, Affleck, who swore off superhero movies after Daredevil, later changed his mind and went on to play Batman in the DC Extended Universe starting in 2016's Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice.