The introduction of the MCU by Marvel was instrumental in making Robert Downey Jr’s Iron Man one of the most celebrated superheroes, along with being the most pivotal character in the vast Marvel narrative. While Downey Jr made the role his own, Iron Man’s importance within the MCU went from strength to strength.
Interestingly, the character’s path could have been very different and significantly less successful, if not for the indirect support lent by Ben Affleck’s Daredevil. While the film did well financially, lukewarm reactions from the audiences and critics regarding the aesthetic of the film, made producer David Maisel look within Marvel Studios for inspiration, which set off the MCU and Iron Man phenomena.
How The Failure of Ben Affleck’s Daredevil Gave Rise To The MCU Brainwave
In 2003, Ben Affleck took on a Marvel superhero for the first in Daredevil, directed by Mark Steven Robinson. The film which was produced by Marvel Studios along with two other production companies, followed the narrative of a blind lawyer named Matt Murdock, who fights for justice in the courtroom, and on the streets of New York as the masked vigilante Daredevil.
While the film brought in money at the box office, it was deemed a failure for its unreliability with audiences due to its very 90s-style filmmaking. In addition, Ben Affleck’s performance as Daredevil also received backlash as he failed to impress fans. Following this rejection, producer David Maisel took a long hard look at the structure of Marvel and came to the conclusion that the studio must pioneer its own efforts to build a superhero world.
In the book, MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios, Maisel elaborated on the reasons behind his thought process. More significantly, the producer brought to light the plight of Iron Man, whose film was considered being sold to New Line Cinema, This, he thought, would stagnate the character forever.
“Your character is in limbo and somebody else controls it. When you make a movie deal for a license, you’re freezing animation, you’re freezing a lot of other things. You’re handing over your babies to somebody, and nothing happens.”
Thanks to Maisel’s meeting with Marvel’s creative head Avi Arad, the seed for creating an exclusive Marvel universe bankrolled completely by the studio itself, was planted. In this manner, the MCU came into being, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Ben Affleck On Why Daredevil Was A Flop
In 2003, Ben Affleck signed on for the role of one of Marvel’s enigmatic superheroes, Daredevil, a blind lawyer by day, and a masked vigilante who fights for justice at night. While this was an opportunity for Affleck to add another tick mark to his resume, the film ended up being panned by critics and audiences, despite faring well financially.
One of the reasons for Daredevil’s failure was Affleck’s own admission that his vision for the film was very different from what was being envisioned for the character. In an interview with Far Out Magazine, Affleck spoke about wanting to explore the realistic shades of his superhero like adapting to blindness, while he was asked to do completely the opposite.
“The character I played was a superhero, and there was loads of fantastical stuff attached to that, but that was less interesting to learn about than really learning what it felt like to be a person who had lost their sight, how they experienced the world, how their other sense changed,”
Affleck though, made amends many years later with his Batman gig in the DCEU. Despite some of these films not faring well, the Oscar winner’s performance as Bruce Wayne aka Batman, was lauded by audiences and critics alike.
