Warning: This article contains some spoilers for the latest episode of Daredevil: Born Again.
The Punisher is back. In the latest episode of Daredevil: Born Again, Jon Bernthal made his highly anticipated return as Frank Castle, aka the Punisher.
The episode marks Bernthal’s first appearance as the vigilante since Netflix’s The Punisher in 2019. However, the return almost never happened. Bernthal originally walked away from the first incarnation of Daredevil: Born Again.
“Ultimately, I didn’t see it,” Bernthal told EW. “I didn’t see the version of Frank, and what they wanted from Frank [didn’t] really make sense to me and I thought would not appeal to the fans and wouldn’t be congruent. It was not something I was really interested in doing. So we had to walk away.”
In September 2023, Marvel pulled the plug on Born Again and creatively overhauled the series. New writers and directing teams were brought in to give the Disney+ series a grittier and more violent tone, similar to the one employed by the Netflix show.
The Punisher’s Dario Scardapane became the new showrunner on Born Again. Bernthal appreciated these changes and changed his original stance on returning.
“They really brought me into the conversation,” Bernthal explained. “We really got specific about where Frank is psychologically, where Frank’s at physically.”
Daredevil: Born Again won’t be a one-off for Bernthal’s character. The Punisher will receive a Disney+ TV special, similar to Werewolf by Night. Bernthal has been extremely hands-on, penning the screenplay with director Reinaldo Marcus Green.
“The story that we’ve laid out is, I think, really special,” Bernthal said about the upcoming special. “It’s the visceral, psychologically complex, unforgiving, no-holds-barred version of Frank where he’s going to turn his back to the audience. And nothing is easy and all violence has a cost, and we’re going to see that cost. I’m grateful that they’re letting me go to the places that I really want to go.”
The next episode of Daredevil: Born Again streams to Disney+ on Tuesday, March 25.
Some of the best shots in Grok Imagine’s AI-made Odyssey don’t contain actors. Ancient landscapes stretch into the distance. Close-ups of grimy hands suggest people who have touched something rougher than a keyboard. For a few seconds, the illusion holds.
https://twitter.com/imagine/status/2113712964419063911
YouTube videos could soon look better without eating quite so much data, right? Thankfully, the platform plans to introduce a new video format called AV2 on its web player in early 2027, promising more efficient streaming and potentially fewer playback hiccups on slower internet connections. The big headline is a roughly 30% improvement in compression efficiency over AV1, YouTube's existing video format. That doesn't guarantee every video will use 30% less data, but it could make streaming a little easier on both internet connections and data allowances.
What is AV2, and why should viewers care?
YouTube is changing how its Home page works, giving viewers more control over what shows up there and making some of the app’s most-used sections easier to reach. Custom Feeds are now replacing the existing topic chips for eligible users, while YouTube is also testing a redesigned top bar on mobile that moves Subscriptions closer to the Home feed.
YouTube first started experimenting with Custom Feeds earlier this year, letting you type out what you wanted to watch and turning that request into its own stream of recommendations. Now, the feature is starting to look less like a side experiment and more like something YouTube actually wants people to use as part of their everyday Home page.