MONDAY, MARCH 16, 2015 NETFLIX DAREDEVIL: THE COSTUME For at the least the start of Marvel's upcoming Daredevil Netflix series, Daredevil will be wearing an all-black costume, a choice made early in the show's development. "We had to come up with a logic for it," said Joe Quesada, Marvel's chief creative officer and a former Daredevil artist. "It was a delicate balance, because the stories we're telling are so real-world. Matt starts out in a homemade outfit that develops slowly. As he starts getting the crap kicked out of him on the streets, he adds padding little by little." "We couldn't just come out of the box with a guy running around in a red devil costume," said Jeph Loeb, executive producer and Marvel's television head. "We needed to be able to make sure that it looked not like a costume, but a uniform." Stephanie Maslansky is the show's costume designer. "There was definitely a history and mythology that needed to be adhered to, but it also had to seem authentic," Maslansky said. "It needed to be made of things that anyone could buy on the street, on the Internet or in an army-navy store. We wanted something that looked militaristic and functional, but also dramatic and sexy. It was really tricky to make it both be practical and look, as Joe Quesada likes to say, 'really bad-ass.'" Executive producer and showrunner Steven S. DeKnight said that fans will recognize the influence of Frank Miller's Man Without Fear, an early incarnation of Daredevil, in the spare black suit at which they arrived. "He always wore a black mask that was tied in the back," DeKnight said. "We went through a lot of different versions and did a lot of R&D before settling on something. If you watch very closely, you'll see the outfit evolve subtly into what we call the black ninja suit. The mask changes. He starts wearing protective pads. Eventually it morphs into the classic suit, because he wouldn't be Daredevil without it. Getting there is part of the fun. "The idea was to back the story up to the point before Matt is Daredevil. Then we could take him to a place where some version of the red suit works in a grounded world. The solution is very exciting and makes complete sense." Daredevil will be available on Netflix on April 10.



























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