Up until Jon Bernthal stomped onto the scene in the sophomore run of Daredevil, before going on to headline The Punisher on Netflix for two seasons of his own, a lot of Marvel fans were utterly convinced that Frank Castle would never truly be done justice in live-action.
To be fair, the iconic antihero having gone zero-for-three up until that point presented a compelling case, with Dolph Lundgren, Thomas Jane, and Ray Stevenson all failing to set the world alight as the gun-toting vigilante. Of the three previous incarnations pre-Bernthal, Jane’s portrayal is the most popular by far, but a sequel to Jonathan Hensleigh’s 2004 actioner never materialized.
However, a second installment was in development for a while before the project fell apart, while the leading man surprisingly revealed during a recent convention appearance that one of the names in the running to take over behind the camera was none other than Rob Zombie. Sure enough, fans had plenty to say on social media after discovering the gonzo horror aficionado almost ended up calling the shots on a Marvel Comics adaptation.
We’d be lying if we said we weren’t at least the tiniest bit curious as to how a Rob Zombie-helmed Punisher would have turned out, other than the fact it would have almost certainly been a gore-drenched orgy of violence and bodies being piled up with reckless abandon.
Jane is held in high regard by the Frank Castle fandom, and he’s still not done talking about his one-and-done stint 18 years later, but it’s clear that not everyone would have been particularly thrilled at the prospect of the man born Robert Cummings getting to play in the Marvel sandbox.