Netflix’s library of Marvel series was one of the casualties of Disney launching its own streaming service with its own Marvel shows. Popular series like Daredevil, Jessica Jones, and The Punisher were canceled in one fell swoop. All of these series had pitch-perfect on-screen portrayals of iconic superheroes and a bunch of unresolved storylines. They deserved a lot better, and now that the rights to the Netflix characters have reverted back to Marvel Studios, the MCU should bring some of them back.
There are a number of ways that these characters could be ingratiated into ongoing storylines, like Matt Murdock defending Spider-Man in court or Luke Cage leading the Thunderbolts, but some of them deserve their own standalone stories. After three Punisher movies starring Dolph Lundgren, Thomas Jane, and Ray Stevenson, this brutal character finally deserves to be done justice on the big screen. As long as the Punisher series is no more (it seems unlikely that Disney Plus would revive such a gory property), an R-rated standalone movie would make a nice consolation prize.
Jon Bernthal’s portrayal of Frank Castle – first introduced in Daredevil’s second season before being spun off into his own series – captured every aspect of the character perfectly, from his brute force to his drive to do bad things for good reasons to the simmering rage he’s felt since his family was murdered. Across the first two seasons of The Punisher, Bernthal offered a glimpse at Frank’s complicated emotional state that was primed to be developed and fleshed out during a rich, long MCU character arc.
Kevin Feige has said that Deadpool 3 is the only R-rated movie on the MCU’s horizon, which is a smart move for now, but the franchise might benefit from a handful of standalone R-rated efforts revolving around characters like ‘Pool who are more suited to hard-R stories. Logan proved that the freedom of an R rating is the only way to do the Wolverine character justice on-screen and Wesley Snipes’ R-rated Blade movies were so much fun that it’d be a shame if Marvel settles for a PG-13 rating with Mahershala Ali’s reboot.
A solo Punisher movie leaning into the darkest aspects of Frank’s characterization could be a great way to shake up the MCU. Between the zaniness of the Thor movies and the lightheartedness of the Spidey movies, a grim, ultraviolent Punisher movie would offer an interesting counterpoint to the rest of a given year’s MCU output. If Marvel expects moviegoers to buy tickets to see a new movie three or four times a year after Endgame already provided closure, then it’ll have to start doing more to keep things fresh and distinguish these movies from one another.
Such a movie wouldn’t be beholden to tying up all the loose ends from the series, as that would alienate viewers who never caught the show. It also has no burden to retell the character’s origin story – it can jump right into the action. A Punisher movie with an intense focus on Frank’s complex characterization and his brutal vigilantism would attract fans of gritty action cinema as well as fans of comic books. There are plenty of great storylines from the comics that a standalone movie could draw from, like “The Slavers” arc, which sees Frank taking on a sex trafficking ring in New York’s seedy criminal underworld.
There’s no way that a blood-drenched, hard-R Punisher movie would make the same kind of money as a family-friendly crowd-pleaser like a Black Panther movie or a Guardians of the Galaxy movie, but it wouldn’t need to because it wouldn’t cost as much. The average MCU movie costs a whopping $200 million to produce. A Punisher movie, on the other hand, wouldn’t cost more than $50 million – it could break even before grossing the amount that the other movies cost to make.
While Endgame felt like a series finale, the bold experimentation in WandaVision proved that the Marvel empire has the chance to continue growing. Franchise fatigue won’t set in as long as the MCU keeps taking risks like a black-and-white sitcom in 4:3 aspect ratio or a multiverse-bending sci-fi odyssey that reveals the true identity of D.B. Cooper to be Loki. Releasing smaller R-rated standalone efforts like DC’s own Joker movie could be a great way for the MCU to keep expanding without inundating audiences with Avengers.
If Feige decides to take the franchise in this direction (or introduces a side label for darker stories, like “MCU Dark” or something), then one of his top priorities should be a Punisher movie with Bernthal’s Frank Castle that leans as heavily into the comics’ grisly violence as his canceled Netflix series. Bernthal is eager to return to the role, his spot-on take on the character has an established fan base, and this character is too awesome for Marvel to leave him on a shelf to gather dust.