Daredevil TV Stars Admit They Like Ben Affleck's Movie

It’s no secret that the 2003 “Daredevil” film wasn’t that good. The pre-MCU film starring Ben Affleck was critically panned and is now widely considered to be one of the worst superhero films ever made. The film even soured Affleck on the genre, as he voiced his own complaints and once was quoted as saying that he would not play a superhero ever again, a feeling that has obviously changed. However, there are still fans of the movie out there, and two of them happen to be stars of Netflix’s hit “Daredevil” program.

Charlie Cox, who plays Matt Murdock/Daredevil, and Elden Henson, who plays his best friend Foggy, were recently at the Wizard World Convention in Pittsburgh when they spoke about their surprising affection for the film. Cox was asked if he was scared to take on the role of the blind vigilante after the previous film. Cox recalled that a friend of his reminded him that there wasn’t too much pressure, to which Cox disagreed.

“When I got cast in Daredevil, a friend of mine, who I was having tea with said he heard that I got that Daredevil role and I was like ‘Yeah, yeah. Super excited!’ and he said The bar is low...I actually really, really liked the film and thought Ben Affleck did a really good job. I think the film is tonally a bit confused [but] I actually really enjoyed it."

Cox did clarify that a character like Daredevil is certainly better served on a platform like Netflix due to how dark the source material can get at times. “I think that if you make Spider-Man, and I don’t know much about the other characters to be honest, but if you make Spider-man, for example, you can make a movie for kids and adults and it can have that kind of humor because I think it’s true to the characters for the most part. Daredevil needs to be on a platform like Netflix because the source material is so dark and so complicated and so sinister at times. I think what benefited us so much was that Netflix wanted to make the show with Marvel and we were able to embrace those darker tones.”

This isn’t the first time that Cox has shared his taste for the 2003 film. Last year while being a guest on a podcast, Cox said that he “didn’t dislike Ben Affleck” in the film, and said even then that the film had tonal problems. "I felt like tonally the movie was confused and I didn’t feel like Ben Affleck and Colin Farrell were in the same movie. Ironically, I thought that Colin Farrell was closer to what the director was going for. Sometimes he would have en emotional response or a facial expression in a scene that was very representative of a comic panel. I thought it was fun at times, I just don't think to make that movie in that tone suits Daredevil. It doesn’t really work for that character and that world."

Henson didn’t exactly give the movie glowing reviews, but he did try to let fans know that making a movie isn’t an easy task. “Just so everyone knows out there – it’s not easy to make a movie….It’s really hard. No one sets out to make a bad movie or disappoint anybody. I think they were [just] making these types of superhero things in a much different way back then.”