The series was intended to be darker than other Marvel projects, intentionally avoiding crossovers with the wider MCU and focusing on a crime fiction style that was inspired by 1970s films.

The first season sees lawyer-by-day Matt Murdock use his heightened senses from being blinded as a young boy to fight crime at night on the streets of New York City's Hell's Kitchen neighborhood as Daredevil while uncovering a conspiracy of the criminal underworld being led by Wilson Fisk.

[1] In the second season, Murdock continues to balance life as a lawyer and Daredevil, while crossing paths with Frank Castle / Punisher, a vigilante with far deadlier methods, as well as the return of an ex-girlfriend—Elektra Natchios.

[2][3] In the third season, after Fisk is released from prison, Murdock, who has been missing for months following the events of The Defenders, reemerges as a broken man and must decide between hiding from the world as a criminal lawyer, or embracing his life as a hero vigilante.

[49] In October 2013, Deadline Hollywood reported that Marvel was preparing four drama series and a miniseries, totaling 60 episodes, to present to video on demand services and cable providers, with Netflix, Amazon and WGN America expressing interest.

[50] A few weeks later, Disney announced that Marvel Television and ABC Studios would provide Netflix with live action series centered around Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Iron Fist, and Luke Cage, leading up to a miniseries based on the Defenders.

[51] This format was chosen due to the success of The Avengers (2012), for which the characters of Iron Man, The Hulk, Captain America, and Thor were all introduced separately before being teamed up in that film.

[53] Goddard was happy with the change to television from his film idea "because you can take time and deal with these smaller things, which to me are much more interesting on a character level".

[citation needed] The series was officially titled Daredevil,[55] with Peter Friedlander, Allie Goss, Kris Henigman, Cindy Holland, Alan Fine, Stan Lee, Joe Quesada, Dan Buckley, Jim Chory, Loeb, Goddard, and DeKnight also serving as executive producers.

[citation needed] Elements of the series storyline were adapted from Frank Miller and John Romita Jr.'s 1993–1994 miniseries Daredevil: The Man Without Fear, a retelling of the character's origin.

"[63] DeKnight took inspiration from The French Connection (1971), Dog Day Afternoon (1975), and Taxi Driver (1976), and stated that "we would rather lean toward The Wire (2002–2008) than what's considered a classic superhero television show.

[67] On October 11, Dawson's role was revealed to be Claire Temple,[15] a character resembling that of Night Nurse,[18] while Ayelet Zurer, Bob Gunton, Toby Leonard Moore, and Vondie Curtis-Hall joined the series as Vanessa Mariana, Leland Owlsley, James Wesley, and Ben Urich, respectively.

[71] Costume designer Stephanie Maslansky, talking about the inspiration and vision for the series, said "Daredevil is rooted in the authentically gritty New York City neighborhood, Hell's Kitchen where Matt Murdock grew up.

In the comics—particularly those of the Frank Miller era in the early 1990s—there were detailed illustrations we endeavored to bring to life in a grounded, gritty, and updated way, with respect and a strong nod to the original characters.

Quesada, who previously worked as an artist on Daredevil comics, gave several suggestions, including the incorporation of some of how New York was created into the suit, which led to the use of rivets and "architectural" shapes.

The suit is intended to look like a Kevlar vest, and the black sections are an homage to comic panels where the artists highlighted certain areas with red, with "deeper portions" in shadow.

DeKnight explained that multiple companies had made pitches to the creative team involving "variations of the same idea, where you zoom in on an eye and you see a sonar map of the city."

Patrick wanted the sculptures we were forming to feel like miniatures, so we did a lot of experimenting with scene scale and with camera settings, simulating depth of field to achieve that look."

Fluids Lead Miguel A. Salek stated that "Each shot required custom flow maps to be painted on the sculptures, along with small attraction fields and thousands of tiny adjustments to achieve the shapes and behavior Patrick was looking for.

So we started with that sort of idea, that if the sky opened up and Chitauri were raining down with giant whales, and the Hulk and the Avengers were there to save the day, that's really exciting, but how did that affect the people who were six blocks over and three avenues down?

[90][91][92] In November 2013, Disney CEO Bob Iger stated that, if the characters prove popular on Netflix, "It's quite possible that they could become feature films,"[93] which Sarandos echoed in July 2015.

[97] While writing Avengers: Infinity War (2018), Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely talked about possibly having Daredevil and Luke Cage appear in the film's New York City scenes, but felt that including them for quick cameos would not have satisfied the audiences.

[99] An update for the mobile fighting game Marvel Contest of Champions was released in November 2015, featuring a six-part story quest involving Daredevil and Jessica Jones along with a level based on Hell's Kitchen.

Todd Yellin, Netflix's vice president of product innovation, noted that audiences watch the series "in order of how they're interested in them and how they learn about them."

[118] In October 2018, Crimson Hexagon, a consumer insights company, released data that examined the "social-media buzz" for the series to try to correlate it with potential viewership.

The website's critical consensus reads, "With tight adherence to its source material's history, high production quality, and a no-nonsense dramatic flair, Daredevil excels as an effective superhero origin story, a gritty procedural, and an exciting action adventure.

The site's critical consensus reads, "Bolstered by some impressive action, Daredevil keeps its footing in season two, even if its new adversaries can't quite fill the void left by Wilson Fisk.

[151][152][153] Loeb implied that Marvel Television had not instigated the development of the spin-off and were focusing on making "the best 13 episodes of Daredevil season two" at the time, but did say, "I'm never going to discourage a network from looking at one of our characters and encouraging us to do more [...] If we are lucky enough that through the writing, through the direction, through the actor that people want to see more of that person, terrific.

Deadline Hollywood noted, that "unlike Iron Fist or Luke Cage, the door seems to be wide open" for the series to continue elsewhere, potentially on Disney's streaming service, Disney+.

[181] Bernthal, Woll, Henson, Bethel, and Zurer are also reprising their roles as Frank Castle / Punisher,[184] Karen Page, Foggy Nelson,[185] Benjamin "Dex" Poindexter,[186] and Vanessa Mariana-Fisk in Born Again.