Vincent D’Onofrio’s Kingpin is now the dark beating heart of Marvel’s TV shows
Vincent D'Onofrio's thoughtful explanation of that Echo ending is a good sign for the future of Marvel TV
TV Features Kingpin
Marvel Studios released Jeremy Renner and Hailee Steinfeld’s Hawkeye in November 2021 as a little holiday treat for superhero fans, but the real joy was the way the show gradually teased the return of Vincent D’Onofrio’s Wilson Fisk—with D’Onofrio reprising his role from Netflix’s Daredevil show, where he was one of the undeniable highlights. Though Hawkeye was much cheerier than Daredevil ever was, D’Onofrio hadn’t lost a step in his performance and was just as compelling in the Disney+ series as he was when he was trading punches with The Devil Of Hell’s Kitchen on Netflix (though it was seemingly left intentionally unclear if the events of Daredevil were meant to have happened before the events of Hawkeye, if at all).
A lot of things happened in the Marvel Cinematic Universe since then, both in the movies and on the Disney+ shows (including Charlie Cox’s Daredevil making his own return, both in Spider-Man: No Way Home and She-Hulk), but it wasn’t until the new Echo series that D’Onofrio and Fisk came back. And now Marvel finally seems ready to make the Kingpin the twisted, angry center of its whole TV universe.
And that’s great, not just because the Kingpin is a great villain—with his unnervingly calm exterior that barely conceals an endlessly buzzing mountain of biblical rage—but because D’Onofrio is a great representative for Marvel and for the potential of superhero stories. He’s such a great actor that both his performance and his passion for the craft of acting elevate everything around him. Just look at D’Onofrio’s recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, where he offered a thoughtful take on the Kingpin’s headspace post-Echo and elegantly teased his return in the troubled Daredevil: Born Again series.
Echo ended with Alaqua Cox’s Maya Lopez embracing her place in her Choctaw family and tapping into the same healing powers that her mother had used when she was a child, using them to seemingly heal the Kingpin both physically and mentally—by forcing him to confront painful childhood memories of his father. Screaming “What did you do?” a distraught Kingpin runs away and boards a plane back to New York (where he sees a news report about how someone Kingpin-like should run for mayor).
When asked about that ending, D’Onofrio (a true actor king) actually offered his own impression of what it meant, saying that he doesn’t think Fisk as “changed” so much as he’s been “enlightened.” About what, D’Onofrio doesn’t say, but he does tease that the news report about New York’s mayoral election gave him a realization that, if he wants to be “all-powerful,” then “this is what I’m going to do.”
He seems to be saying that this isn’t just Fisk coming up with his next evil scheme, but Fisk making a decision about the kind of man he wants to be—and the kind of man he’ll be in future MCU appearances like Daredevil: Born Again. Speaking of, that show has been going through a creative overhaul, with Marvel bosses reportedly unhappy with what original head writers Chris Ord and Matt Corman had come up with, and the new version of Born Again will apparently be much more reminiscent of the Netflix show.
Marvel semi-officially declared that the Netflix superhero shows are canon in the MCU now, even though that doesn’t entirely make sense, but D’Onofrio told THR that making the connection explicit lets the show bring in “a lot of cool stories and all the collateral story that happened in those original three seasons.” That means Fisk, and his existing relationship with Daredevil from the Netflix show, will form the backbone of these shows going forward, and with D’Onofrio being the one going out in front of the public and hyping up this stuff, talking about how Born Again will now get to operate “with all of that history behind us and the outcome of all that history,” he’s doing more to generate excitement for the future of Marvel’s TV projects than Marvel itself—which couldn’t be bothered to explain if Netflix’s Daredevil happened in the same universe as Disney+’s Hawkeye for literal years.
Robert Downey Jr. recently told Rob Lowe on his Literally! podcast that he thought he did some of the best acting of his career as Tony Stark in the Marvel movies, but it “went a little bit unnoticed because of the genre.” He’s right on both counts, but everything about D’Onofrio’s work as Wilson Fisk is a clear illustration of just how right he is and, perhaps, an indication that the future of Marvel Studios’ TV branch is in good hands.
37 Comments
I still find myself watching episodes of Law and Order: CI. He was all quirk and no character in the beginning, and it was a little distracting at times. But D’Onofrio was completely committed to the bit. It was like you could tell he had more to offer than case-of-the-week one liners. I’m really happy he found such a meaty role to show off his full range.The corporate gods would never allow it but imagine how sick a crossover with Law and Order would be. Eams and Co. losing it over how their friend has transformed into a monster. That’s what the fan fiction community is for if you can we weed through all the slash and shipping.
Too bad Richard Belzer has passed. A cameo from Det. Munch would have been perfect on Daredevil.
oh c’mon that never stopped disney before. gimme the digital munch.
But that would mean the entire MCU was being imagined by an autistic child.
But we need to update it. Instead of zooming out to an autistic child staring a snowglobe, it zooms out to an autistic child staring at their laptop, which is opened to AO3
The best sign of all of how great a character Kingpin is is that not a single person has ever complained about the first season of Daredevil padding itself out with both Matt and Karen going through the same arc of learning about his past totally independent of each other. It all just leads back to more of Kingpin, so what’s there to complain about?
Yeah having Kingpin at “ground level” is a great way to keep stuff focused. I don’t mind the idea of him being mayor of New York as long as it keeps him focused on making the lives of New York heroes miserable.
This article would mean a lot more if Echo wasn’t laughably awful.
I really think Donofrio has turned in the best performance of the entire Marvel franchise, including the movies. I’m glad Marvel came to their senses in bringing him back.
Was talking to some other Marvel nerd-friends and we’d full-throatedly agree. He’s at least a top 5 performance of, and I say this with no irony, any Marvel production ever.The man exudes Kingpin. He doesn’t need to speak. He can just look, and you know who he is. You know what you’re fucking with.It’s an intense, immense performance and building around it is one of the most sensible things Marvel could fucking do in this day and age.
There’s a quality to Fisk in the shows where he seems awkward sometimes about how huge he is. He can use it to terrifying effect when he wants to, but there are scenes, especially with Vanessa, where he’s clearly so aware of how much space he takes up. I imagine this is something D’Onofrio has experienced in his real life and brings to the role really naturally.
He’s up there. Just an off-the-cuff top 5, in no order:D’OnofrioSebastian Stan. His “I’m free” scene in Falcon/Winter Soldier may be the best actual acting scene, but he’s great in all of it. Evans – I legit thought Cap was unplayable and certainly not by someone I chalked up as lightweight.RDJ – Hard to pick one scene, but gets points for carrying the load.Olsen – Probably gotten the most to play with. May have to expand to 6 to include Bettany too
If we’re talking just MCU/Netflix (modern Marvel without Fox or Spider-Man):
1. Evans as Cap
2. Tennant as Purple Man/Killgrave
3. D’onofrio as Fisk4. Olsen as Wanda5. RDJ
This is a tough list. I’m already rethinking it.
I’m considered Tennant, but ultimately decided he was just being Evil Brit.However, one bit of canon Feige should ignore is killing off Purple Man. Seeing him interact with the current roster would be hilarious/frightening.
Stan is very under-rated, and that scene was amazing.
Evans – I legit thought Cap was unplayable and certainly not by someone I chalked up as lightweight.Pretty much this. Cap IS basically unplayable, and I haven’t found Evans to be particularly compelling in other roles, but he found the perfect line to walk with Cap somehow, and made the character the beating heart of the early MCU. The character didn’t have level of quirkiness or constant quip to fall back on like other MCU characters. Evans was often stuck playing a ridiculous level of earnestness and sincerity that could easily come off as either unrealistically pious or overwhelmingly maudlin on the other extreme. Instead he found the perfect in-between somehow and created a believable version of a potentially unbelievable boy scout.
He’s MVP to the point that if Marvel really gets super desperate, I’d throw the money bag at Evans before Downey.
I’m just glad these movies weren’t made at the height of the company’s “Ultimate” brand edginess. Imagine a Cap on the big screen yelling “Do you think this A stands for France?”
So Marvel’s doing what they did in 2015 again? Maybe Echo will appear in Defenders Season 2.
Odd takeaway.
it is funny that this article posits ‘a good sign for the future of marvel tv’ is a performance that this guy figured out 10 years ago on a different service.
When Kingpin asked “What did you do?!” at the end of Echo, I found myself asking that same question. It’s bafflingly unclear what happens.Echo uses her newfound powers to force Fisk to confront the moment where he murdered his abusive father…okay but then what? What is gained from that?The next shot of Kingpin is him in a plane. So like, him and his goons just left? It feels like there’s a scene missing. It’s unclear what effect Echo’s actions actually have on Fisk, and he apparently just decides to up and leave and let Echo face no repercussions for her actions during the entire series that made Fisk so mad.I was left scratching my head.
I was scratching my head when he offered her Queenpin said he would wait on the plane ,then for …..reasons???? He had an army ready to kill the town at the pow wow ……because ….she didn’t show???
Yeah, that was strange to me too. I know a lot of stuff was cut to trim down the total run time, but it ends up leaving some vital questions unanswered.
ancestral feminism
D’Onfrio came back as Fisk in Hawkeye.
they say as much.
A lot of things happened in the Marvel Cinematic Universe since then,
both in the movies and on the Disney+ shows (including Charlie Cox’s
Daredevil making his own return, both in Spider-Man: No Way Home and She-Hulk), but it wasn’t until the new Echo series that D’Onofrio and Fisk came back.
The “since then” in this passage is referring to the Hawkeye show.
So hear me out. Marvel needs a big screen villain now that Jonathan Majors is out… and I’m sorry, general moviegoing audiences aren’t going to bite on someone named Doctor Doom. D’Onfrio has gravitas and the character is fairly well established (I actually know way more people who casually watched Daredevil on Netflix than any of the Disney marvel shows). Just saying.
no disrespect to him in the role, but i just don’t believe there’s going to be a ‘beating heart’ to any of the mcu-tv stuff.it’s nice there’s a guy who represents some connective tissue, and obviously what happened in hawkeye begot what happened in echo and will beget what happens in born again…but like he’s for sure not gonna have anything to do with that agatha show or the ironheart show or that wakanda show, right?the tv stuff is all just random characters doing random stuff in random places and timelines.
at the end of Armor Wars he’s going to pick up a discarded repulsor glove, put it on, and say “Fine, I’ll do it myself.”
So … will Jessica Jones come back?
D’Onofrio was born to play Kingpin. When I was a kid reading Spider-Man back in the 70s, this was the guy I pictured in my head.
he does tease that the news report about New York’s mayoral election gave him a realization that, if he wants to be “all-powerful,” then “this is what I’m going to do.”Dude, go find an infinity stone or a magic ring or something. I don’t think the mayor of new york is “all-powerful”I would watch a Veep type show where mayor Fisk constantly wants to beat people to death but has to restrain himself and smile for the press and do stupid photo ops.
Donofrio’s Fisk has never done it for me. The shaved head and temper tantrums makes it feel like he is just a giant toddler instead of a menacing crime boss. Maybe he can do a Baby CrimeBoss cross over with that franchise.
unpopular opinion but i also think the voice sucks.
Fisk ends up being elected as mayor of NY in the comics as well and Matt Murdock ends up being his deputy mayor (Matt had prior used Purple Man’s powers to make Fisk forget that he’s Daredevil) to keep an eye on him. Fisk runs on an anti-vigilante platform. Unsurprisingly, Fisk uses his position to consolidate his power as a crime lord, but he is also an oddly good mayor in many other ways, like reducing poverty, and is well liked by the public. He gets a law passed banning superheroes. Who enforces this new law? The Thunderbolts. Fisk runs for mayor again during this against… Luke Cage. Cage is shocked to find even his fellow Avengers are going to vote for Fisk, but his wife… Jessica Jones… detects the influence of the Purple Man and it turns out Fisk has the Purple Man imprisoned in a machine that extends his mind control powers to a huge area.Fisk eventually realizes the Purple Man erased his memories of Matt Murdock being Daredevil and this causes Fisk to basically lose his shit. Even though he is using Purple Man’s mind control powers to his own ends he suddenly doesn’t trust his own mind. This leads him to force the Purple Man to make all citizens of NY to attack superheroes on sight. Much fighting ensues, Fisk is eventually defeated and flees, and Cage becomes mayor of NY by default. Which he still is in the comics.Now, there’s no way the MCU is going to do the whole Devil’s Reign arc but, it coincidently involves many of the Netflix characters and a Thunderbolts movie is coming. I think it would’ve been leaked by now if they were intending to bring back Ritter, Colter, Tennant (whose Purple Man was killed in the series), etc. but there’s a lot of opportunity and synergy to bring these characters back, even if they are recast, to do some rendition of this arc.