Draft:Heaven's Half Hour

Development

Writing

According to Cox, early discussions for Born Again were about "reinvent[ing] the whole thing" and portraying Matt Murdock / Daredevil as a different person from the one seen in the Netflix show,^[36] with Murdock's friends Franklin "Foggy" Nelson and Karen Page largely not acknowledged in that version of the show, as executive producer Sana Amanat felt the creative team was struggling to find a place to their story, and though Cox said there were discussions to do some "cool stuff" with them down the line, they weren't really acknowledging that they were "in the world". They were ultimately brought back because, according to Amanat, the Marvel team felt Foggy and Karent were both the heart of the old and and Murdock, functioning best to push him in different ways and force him to confront their shared past.^[2] Scardapane felt that the dream of the trio of friends at the end of the original show worked as the connective tissue with the new show even for viewers who hadn't watched it in a way they weren't forced to watch it, allowing them to start Born Again with said dream without too much explanation.^[25]

Having already had there been plans for Nelson to be killed off-screen before the first season's events since the show's original version,^[2] the creative team held extensive discussions and debates regarding Foggy's death in the episode before finalizing it. Winterbaum explained that while the creative team did not want to do it, they chose to do so as they felt it would "launch Matt on this trajectory", which would be key in advancing the story.^[37] He described as Murdock "making a deal withthe devil", in a way himself, in order to be righteous to deal with the certain amount of toxicity of his own, waging for ultimate justice with collateral damage, feeling like a really crucial core to Murdock's character arc within the show, despite how the creative team really agonized over Foggy's death, comparing it to Gambit's in X-Men '97 (2024-present) for both representing something essential to the core idea so their losses have a huge impact in the universes their stories live in so they didn't take their deaths lightly.^[38] Scardapane also clarified that Foggy's death was included in previous iterations of the show. After previously choosing to depict his death off-screen, they decided to portray it on screen as they felt it would be crucial in establishing the series' tone and ensuring that Murdock's new origin story included a major event in which his world would be "broken apart and rebuilt". The moment was inspired by the scene in which Bullseye killed Karen Page in the comic issue Daredevil (1998) #5.^[37] In their own internal conversations on either end of the reactionary spectrum, the team pored over Daredevil comics to find precedent and that particular issue served as source material, being precisely why they opted to bring Benjamin "Dex" Poindexter back, due to Foggy being so integral and defining to Matt's identity to the point he puts away the mask to start a new life only to desist and come back to violence because his friend's death as he was his moral compass, being the only thing that made sense narratively to the creative team so they could tell their story and narrative no matter what a risky move or how heartbreaking it was, sending Murdock into a state of freeze because he tries to uphold Foggy's virtues in his absence, but the pressure he starts bearing starting from this episode throughout the season as shown in the second episode makes it difficult, with Nelson's absence looming large for the season's rease and being a "big part of the culmination".^[38] While talking with Elden Henson about how Foggy would die, Moorhead and Benson initially looked at him unable to come to his face due to the embarassment of having to tell him his character would die, feeling themselves as interlopers, but Henson gave them his blessing as long they took the task seriously and it had a purpose within the show, not for "shock value", thus giving them the permission to proceed. They discussed what was Foggy's relationship with the afterlife due to Murdock's religion all while making sure his death wouldn't be just him lying down on the ground and then slowly stop breathing, ensuring his death protracted over the course of Daredevil and Dex fighting.^[39]

In the finished version of the episode, Murdock has ceased being Daredevil for a year after a certain "line was crossed" despite an urge at retaking his mantle remains since Foggy's murder at Bullseye's hands, which nearly got Daredevil to kill him.^[2] Having lost contact with Karen as well, Murdock finds himself lost because, according to Moorhead, grotesque violence has real consequences so both Foggy's death and Dex's attempted murder led to his grief ripple out to the point he no longer believes as a Catholic hero that he is worthy of God's grace.^[40] The season would have originally opened with a shot of Murdock, in his Daredevil suit, pulling off his mask and dropping it while crying, which was meant to occur shortly after Nelson's off-screen death to explain why he had stopped being Daredevil after the show's beginning.^[2] The scene was shot by the water during the first round of shooting on a freezing cold day, with Moorhead and Benson accompanied by Nachmanoff, being supposed the last thing that happened after Foggy's death and explaining why didn't he put the suit on for so long, but the episode ended up being reworked to be about all of that, as the issue was that the way the creative team kept trying to do it wasn't feasible in one show, prompting the new pilot's story to be done, with time to think about it available due to the Writers Guild of America strike, leading them to realize they needed a whole episode to transition.^[39] Scadapane thought it was essential for this moment to be shown onscreen, due to it being "more than an inciting incident", like "an earthquake" that has "ripple effects" through the entire story. Deeming the killing off of Foggy as something "big, brave and bold" that made things diffent to shake audiences up no matter how sad the neccessary casualty was due to how devastating the loss was on a personal level to the character, Cox proposed to Scardapane about Murdock hearing Foggy's heartbeat as it grew fainter and stopped, which he added to the script as he went home due to deeming it a brilliant idea.^[40]

Casting

Starring in the first season are Charlie Cox as Matt Murdock / Daredevil, Vincent D'Onofrio as Wilson Fisk / Kingpin,^[5] Margarita Levieva as Heather Glenn,^[41] Deborah Ann Woll as Karen Page, Elden Henson as Foggy Nelson,^[42] Wilson Bethel as Benjamin "Dex" Poindexter,^[43][44] Zabryna Guevara as Sheila Rivera,^[45]: 12 Nikki M. James as Kirsten McDuffie,^[45]: 5 Genneya Walton as BB Urich, Arty Froushan as Buck Cashman,^[45]: 12 Clark Johnson as Cherry,^[45]: 5 Michael Gandolfini as Daniel Blake,^[46] and Ayelet Zurer as Vanessa Marianna-Fisk,^[47] Before the creative overhaul, cast members from the Netflix series beyond Cox and D'Onofrio were not expected to reprise their roles,^[48] and Sandrine Holt was cast to replace Zurer as Vanessa. Zurer was brought back after the overhaul,^[17][47] along with Woll, Henson and Bethel.^[42][43] The returns of Woll and Henson were "key additions", despite the former initially finding her surprise comeback tricky to navigate due to feeling she was doing an impression of herself, with Amanat pushing as well to bring Bethel back due to deeming him the most appropiate villain to come back after being "so great" in the original show's third season and being so intrigued by his character in general.^[2]

Filming and visual effects

Filming took place at Silvercup Studios East in Queens,^[49] with location work throughout New York,^[50] with Benson and Moorhead directing.^[24] The first scenes that Woll, Henson and Cox shot together again were well documented by paparazzi, who captured them in-character walking out of an office building that stood in for their Nelson, Murdock, Page: Attorneys at Law firm and for shooting on the street in front of Josie's.^[2] Early in the episode, the filmmakers had a long lens shot of the former building with its founders walking side by side, but because they were filming on the sidewalk, their second favorite take was ruined by someone walking by and saying "What's up, Daredevil?".^[39] An early script for the episode had Murdock and Fisk meeting together early on, but this was pushed later and later with each revision until Cox and D'Onofrio sat down with Scarpane, Benson and Moorhead when they had an early draft of the scene and workshopped it with them for hours to come up with the idea that there should be a moment of levity at the scene's top to seem as if the characters were friends by laughing and having humor only to then get nasty with each other.^[51] Because Murdock and Fisk don't share too much screentime in the season and the scene was their first confrontation since the original show's events, thus adding more gravitas to the moment as they are a pair of characters who bounce off each other, Benson and Moorhead realized that the dynamic between the characters is almost like they are enamored with each other due to the obsession each one has with the other one, feeling warmth as each other gives the other purpose.^[2] This notion is supported by how at the end of the episode, Fisk wins the mayoral elections but finds out Vanessa has a lover while Matt finds himself falling in love for Heather as he walks the streets when the election is called, thus both having big things going on in their lives that require big celebrations, but think about each other due to their obsessions with each other, thus having between themselves a love story in some ways.^[39] For characters within Murdock's shots, they filmed them handheld, but for characters within Fisk's shots, they filmed them with barely movement.^[2] The long emotional fight scene between Daredevil and Dex was so complex to shoot due to the way the camera moved specifically, relative to how other scenes were shot, less frenetic and more on a track pushing in, like with a sense of impending doom, with every department impeccable for it to make it onto the scene, with Cox enjoying to shoot it due to the lots of rehearsal it involved throughout its whole day or days of shooting, being hard to film but deeming its process worth it.^[40] While filming Foggy's death, Cox suggested Foggy's heartbeat rhythms being audible and slowing down as he died. Amanat described the atmosphere as feeling "somber" during production and noted that Ann Woll was immersed in her performance while filming, which left her exhausted.^[37] At the end of the episode, when Fisk is on a rooftop and Murdock walks in a time shift with the city's chaos behind him, klieg lights were used by Benson and Moorhead behind Fisk and lights pulshed on Murdock's face, with Nachmanoff noting such stunning set of images made the scenes look like "completely original Frank Miller stills" that expanded the visual language and scope of the show that inspired him in his respective episodes.^[39]

Visual effects for the episode provided by Rise FX, FOLKS, Phosphene, Powerhouse VFX, Ghost VFX, Soho VFX, Cantina Creative, Anibrain, Base FX, SDFX and The Third Floor, Inc.^[52]

Music

"Future Starts Slow" by The Kills, "Into My Arms" by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, "Headliner" by Tyrone Briggs and "I Looked All Over Town" by The Magnetic Fields are featured in the episode.^[53]