Will Jon Bernthal's Punisher Role Pull Charlie Cox's Daredevil Into Spider-Man: Brand New Day?

People have wanted a Spider-Man and Daredevil team up for literal decades now, and we've seen it play out many times across the comics, the games, and the cartoons. We even got a taste of it in Spider-Man: No Way Home when Charlie Cox returned as Matt Murdock and got Peter off his charges for killing Mysterio and manning the drones and all that good stuff.

The question now is whether Jon Bernthal's Punisher, who came back for Daredevil: Born Again and is set to be a key player in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, means we're also getting Cox's Daredevil in that movie. My gut is telling me yes.

Kingpin Already Namedropped Spider-Man in Daredevil: Born Again

We already got a small Spider-Man reference in the first season of Born Again, when Kingpin dropped a mention to Vanessa of a man who dresses in a spider outfit. That was awesome, partly because it's just neat to hear Spider-Man mentioned in a Daredevil show, and partly because Kingpin is arguably just as much a Spider-Man villain as he is a Daredevil villain.

Getting to hear Vincent D'Onofrio's Kingpin moan about Spider-Man was great on its own.

The Born Again and Brand New Day Teams Are Actually Talking to Each Other

The viewer who sent in this question confirmed that the Born Again season 2 team and the Spider-Man: Brand New Day team are in communication with one another. That's really great to hear regardless of whether Daredevil actually shows up in the movie, because this is a shared cinematic universe. Both projects take place in New York City and they share cast members, with Punisher appearing in both. They need to talk to each other.

Compare that to the teams behind WandaVision and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, who did not communicate whatsoever. Elizabeth Olsen did her hardest to try to get the two sides talking, essentially asking if they wanted her guidance because it felt like the Multiverse of Madness team hadn't seen the show, and it really shows in that movie that they knew nothing about WandaVision. So it's refreshing that Brand New Day and Born Again are communicating, and I'm hopeful that Punisher appearing in Brand New Day is a good sign we may get some Daredevil in there as well.

Kingpin's Job as Mayor Should Force His Hand in Brand New Day

You'd think Kingpin would need to be seen in some capacity in Brand New Day given that he's the mayor of New York and has a beef with all of the city's vigilantes. That's got to play, I would think, a major role in the movie.

Vincent D'Onofrio's Rights Claim Doesn't Add Up to Me

Vincent D'Onofrio has said that due to some legal issue regarding the movie rights to Kingpin, the character can't appear in movies, but I don't see why that would be. Twentieth Century Fox was the studio that had the rights to Daredevil and they used Kingpin in their Daredevil movie. Those rights then reverted back to Marvel because Fox didn't make another Daredevil movie by the deadline. Marvel licenses out movie rights to characters to different studios, and if those studios don't deliver a film by a certain date, the rights revert back to Marvel. As I put it, "They have to use it or lose it." That's what happened with Daredevil, and that's when we got the show.

So I don't know why Kingpin's movie rights wouldn't be fully in Marvel's hands now. The only other studio I can think of that might have some claim to the movie rights to Kingpin would be Sony, since he's also a Spider-Man villain, similar to how Marvel Studios and Fox both had the ability to use Quicksilver because he was both an X-Man and an Avenger. But even if that's the case, I don't see why it would keep Kingpin from showing up in Brand New Day, which is a Sony film, since Sony already used the character of Kingpin in their Spider-Verse animated movies. I'm really not sure why D'Onofrio has said Kingpin can't show up.

I Don't Buy Charlie Cox's Comic-Con Denial

"I think that Daredevil is going to appear in Brand New Day." I don't care that Charlie Cox denied being in it at Comic-Con. He was even asked on stage about his appearance in the Spider-Man trailer, and Brandon Davis, who was interviewing him, was quick to clarify he meant the animated show. But before that clarification, Cox "looked like a deer in headlights," thinking Brandon was talking about the Brand New Day trailer, which was hilarious.

With the way Born Again season 1 ended with Punisher, and now Punisher being in Brand New Day, I would think you'd practically have to have Kingpin and Daredevil show up in Brand New Day, at least in some small capacity. But I don't know, I guess we'll just have to see.

Do you think Daredevil and Kingpin will appear in Spider-Man: Brand New Day?