After intense rumor and speculation that dragged on for years, Kevin Feige effectively signposted Charlie Cox‘s return in Spider-Man: No Way Home when he revealed that if and when Daredevil shows up in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the role wouldn’t be recast with another actor.
Sure enough, audiences around the world went wild when Netflix’s Matt Murdock showed up for a brief cameo appearance as Peter Parker’s lawyer, even if a lot of people would have rather seen the Man Without Fear stick around for a lot more than a brief cameo easing him back into the shared superhero saga.
Cox spent almost the entirety of 2021 denying he was part of the multiversal blockbuster, so a weight has been lifted off his shoulders since his involvement in No Way Home was confirmed. As he revealed to HeyUGuys, the actor met with Kevin Feige way back in 2019, but the Marvel Studios boss didn’t mention Daredevil at all, even though plans surely would have been in place by then.
“I did a play in 2019 with Tom Hiddleston and Kevin Feige came to see our play. And, you know, I went and shook hands with him and said hi and he said how much he enjoyed the play. Never mentioned Daredevil or anything like that. So it turns out he’s a very good liar as well. It’s a relief to be able to talk about it. You know, getting that phone call was a life-changing moment, really.
My involvement with that character and the MCU was dead and buried, I hadn’t heard anything for a couple of years and so I’d moved on. It was incredibly unexpected and out of the blue. I got the call midway through lockdown, Summer of 2020… and we filmed Spider-Man in March of 2021, so I had to keep it secret for almost a year…. So yeah, it’s been intense.”
Now the cat is well and truly out of the bag, Cox has already admitted he’s hoping to become a regular fixture in the MCU moving forward. She-Hulk and Echo have been pinpointed as his potential next destinations, but we’ll just have to wait and see what’s in store.