Director David Slade (30 Days of Night) has been tapped to helm a reboot of the Daredevil franchise for 20th Century Fox. Given that the studio was in the position of either making another Daredevil film in the next few years or letting the rights to the franchise revert back to Disney/Marvel, a reboot was all but inevitable. Variety reports that the film will not contain material from the 2003 Mark Steven Johnson-directed Daredevil flick that starred Ben Affleck, nor the spinoff Elektra, so it appears that this will be a proper reboot.

Slade has been somewhat of a hot property following his first big-budget outing with The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, having been in consideration to helm the Wolverine sequel, Pride and Predjudice and Zombies, and the film adaptation of The Hunger Games. While I didn’t think 2003’s Daredevil was a complete disaster, it was obvious that the studio and director had differing opinions of how to tackle the material. Here’s hoping Slade gets to make the film he envisions. No word on how soon production would start, but Slade is currently attached to helm the vampire horror flick The Last Voyage of the Demeter, so one presumes that Daredevil would immediately follow. Next stop: casting the Man Without Fear. [Update: Heat Vision reports that the story will be based off the acclaimed Frank Miller/David Mazzucchelli story arc Born Again, which had the Kingpin discovering Daredevil’s secret identity, Matt Murdoch, and destroying Murdoch’s life.]