After being the center of the superhero news for the better part of the past few weeks, it looks like we are at the final lap of the controlling film rights to Daredevil. Even though Fox loved the vision that director Joe Carnahan laid out, it wasn’t enough for them to get the film into production before the October 10th deadline, which means that they are letting the deal expire and the rights will revert back to Marvel.

Variety reports that Fox had turned in an extension request to keep the character, only to see that request be denied. Yesterday, Carnahan recently tweeted that he didn’t expect to get the film into production any time soon and that his dreams of bringing his vision of Daredevil to life were pretty much dead. Last night, the director posted sizzle reel he created to pitch his vision of Daredevil to Fox.

It’s hard to believe that a sizzle reel that good — it contained stuff like James Brown music, Robert De Niro voiceovers, and clips from the Warriors and the first Daredevil film starring Ben Affleck, all showcasing what would be a gritty New York City film — would not entice the studio to green light the film and get it going before the rights expire. Based on the tone of the reel, it looked like Carnahan was going to use the Born Again story arc that Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli worked on. The arc centered on Matt Murdock a.k.a. Daredevil trying to hold his life together after his best friend reveals his secret identity to the Kingpin.

According to earlier reports, Fox was willing to let go of Galactus and Silver Surfer characters in order to keep the Daredevil property. But the studio backtracked on the story hours later, proving that they weren’t willing to sacrifice Galactus and Silver Surfer just to keep Daredevil.

Not that it was a complete surprise that Fox would not let them go; Galactus and the Silver Surfer are important pieces to the Fantastic Four storyline. But, them falling in love with Carnahan’s vision and the extension request proved that Fox was trying to keep the Daredevil property under their banner. Unfortunately things just didn’t go in Fox’s favor.

There’s always some hope that Marvel could look take a look at Carnahan’s intentions for Daredevil. Based on the sizzle reel, I seriously hope they are considering bringing Carnahan to a meeting at least.

[Source: Variety]