A Daredevil reboot directed by Joe Carnahan would have been infused with the grit and grime of '70s films like Taxi Driver, as can be seen in a pair of sizzle reels uploaded to YouTube by the helmer Tuesday.

After acknowledging that his vision for the Marvel Comics superhero from Hell's Kitchen wasn't likely to make it to the screen, Carnahan said he would share the short treatments of the character if he reached 6,000 Twitter followers.

"Guys, I'd like a show of hands," Carnahan tweeted Tuesday. "How many of you want to see this [Daredevil] sizzle piece? I'll post it to YouTube if I get the necessary response."

He did, and he kept his word, uploading two similar versions composed of gritty street scenes, comic book panels and footage from the mediocre 2003 Daredevil movie that starred Ben Affleck as Matt Murdock, a blind attorney who moonlights as a masked vigilante. Carnahan's twin sizzle reels are viewable above and below (with the top one being slightly more violent than the other).

The public display of affection for the man without fear followed a last-minute scramble over studio rights to the character. If 20th Century Fox doesn't put a Daredevil movie into production by Oct. 10, the character reverts to Marvel Entertainment. There was talk of an extension and the possibility that the two studios were horse-trading characters or extending the Daredevil deadline. The Marvel studio, now owned by Disney, will get the character back sometime after that deadline passes, according to trade publication Variety.

Carnahan seemed resigned that his vision for the movie, which reportedly would have drawn from Frank Miller's take on the character from the Born Again story arc, would never see the light of day. "Think my idea for a certain retro, red-suited, Serpico-styled superhero went up in smoke today kids," he tweeted Monday.

The director, who hammered out a hit with this year's wolf-punching survival flickThe Grey, also took to Twitter to clarify why the deal didn't happen, saying the Daredevil "pitch was tremendous and everyone flipped for it. The clock ticked down at Fox, that's why it went tits up."

Carnahan, who's working on a Death Wish remake, said in an interview with The Radio Dan Show that his current project played into his darker treatment for a Daredevil film.

"As I'm finishing my kind of re-imagining of Death Wish, I think the '70s is figuring into my conscious and subconscious mind right now," Carnahan said. "I think it was the last time music and movies were just tremendous."

[via /Film]