Vincent D'Onofrio has been playing the Kingpin of Crime for over a decade, and while the Daredevil and Daredevil: Born Again star has made appearances in Hawkeye and Echo, he's yet to bring Wilson Fisk to the big screen.
Charlie Cox made a cameo appearance in 2021's Spider-Man: No Way Home, and the hope is that he might show up in this July's Spider-Man: Brand New Day. As for the soon-to-be former Mayor, we've heard repeatedly that complicated rights issues are keeping him trapped on streaming.
During a recent career retrospective with GQ, D'Onofrio was asked about a potential big-screen appearance for his larger-than-life villain and revealed what's currently keeping the door closed in that.
"Right now, they don’t have the rights," the actor claimed. "They have a bit more rights than they did a couple of years ago, but it’s tough right now. They have the rights to a lot of characters from the Spider-Man series, but they don’t have mine, not completely. So I think that’s holding them back a bit. But I hope to be able to do it, we’ll see."
This sounds somewhat similar to the situation with The Hulk. Marvel Studios can use the Green Goliath as a supporting character in the Avengers, Spider-Man, and Thor franchises. However, a complicated rights deal with Universal means he can't currently headline his own blockbuster.
D'Onofrio added, "I hope Kingpin is in the movies someday. We’ll see, I don’t know. Maybe it will be me, maybe it won’t."
Elsewhere in the conversation, the Daredevil: Born Again star opened up on the show's return after Netflix pulled the plug on Daredevil following a third season that many still consider its best.
"Charlie [Cox] didn't [expect to return], but I did," D'Onofrio reaffirmed. "Every time Charlie used to say we're not coming back, I used to say, 'I think we're coming back,' and he used to think I was just being delusional."
"I just felt there was no reason other than them starting Disney+ that we were pulled from Netflix. We were at the top of our game on Netflix when we were pulled. People were loving the show," he added. "Somebody like [Marvel Studios president] Kevin Feige is not going to not know that. He and his people are gonna know what we did, we kicked butt. I just couldn't imagine them not seeing dollar signs."
Marvel Studios had to wait two years before being able to utilise any Daredevil characters, but once that time had passed, Feige got straight to it. In the space of a few weeks, The Kingpin showed up in Hawkeye and Matt Murdock was revealed as Peter Parker's lawyer in Spider-Man: No Way Home.
In the latest episode of the Daredevil: Born Again Official Podcast, Ayelet Zurer (Vanessa Fisk), Arty Froushan (Buck), and Michael Gandolfini (Daniel Blake) discuss last night's episode, "The Grand Design." You can watch that below.