Jon Bernthal Returning to Punisher?
Small Screen is reporting that Disney has a Punisher series in development for Hulu.
“First, it claims that Marvel Studios is aggressively negotiating with Jon Bernthal to have him reprise the role of Frank Castle.
(Small Screen) claims, ‘The word around the Marvel camp is that Jon Bernthal really wants to play The Punisher again but has been negotiating hard on the contract.’
The scooper then notes, ‘They’re developing a series for The Punisher and desperately negotiating to have Jon Bernthal come back to play Frank Castle.'”
Small Screen has it wrong. It’s not Bernthal that is digging in his heels, it’s Netflix.
The license Marvel wrote for Netflix specified that their version of Punisher had to be legally distinct. That usually means “25% different.” That is the reason that Sony had to fire their own Spiderman actor when Marvel came onboard and their current version of Mary Jane is black.
But regardless, Netflix version of Punisher is legally locked. Disney is perfectly free to use a different setting, which explains the alternate history storyline that is surrounding the Hulu version but using Bernthal himself is legally tricky. Even if he is playing a different version of Punisher it’s still Bernthal playing the part.
Consequently, Netflix has to sign off on it. Which they are eager to do…
… For the right price.
And I honestly doubt if Bob Chapek will agree to that. Ah, well.
Okay, I’m done here.
