Vincent D'Onofrio unsure if his Kingpin will ever meet Spider-Man due to being ‘caught in between’ studio rights

“It's part of the deal when it comes to playing Kingpin,” the “Men in Black” actor said.

Vincent D’Onofrio will return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe soon — but he doesn’t know if the Kingpin will ever cross paths with the company’s most iconic web-slinger.

During a panel at Fan Expo Boston on Saturday, the Daredevil actor speculated about the potential of his villain, Wilson Fisk, meeting Tom Holland’s Spider-Man in a future movie or TV show. “So you know the whole Marvel-Sony thing, right?” he asked interviewer Steve Weintraub, referring to the complex rights agreements between the two companies regarding characters associated with Spider-Man. “So there are characters, Marvel characters, invented by Marvel, written by Marvel, that are caught in between Marvel and Sony. It takes a long time for them to figure out who's doing what and where.”

He continued, “I just never really know… it's part of the deal when it comes to playing Kingpin."

Related: Vincent D'Onofrio answers whether Hawkeye and Daredevil share the same Kingpin

Spider-Man’s studio status has caused many a headache for fans and executives alike in recent years, as Marvel sold the character's movie rights to Sony in the 1990s, allowing Columbia Pictures to effectively do whatever it wants with Peter Parker and his amazing friends. However, the two studios have agreed to grant Disney’s Marvel Studios creative control to bring Tom Holland’s Spider-Man into the MCU, essentially co-parenting the character to allow crossovers with characters like Iron Man and Doctor Strange in Spidey’s solo movies and in Disney’s ensemble projects like Avengers: Endgame and Captain America: Civil War.

Weintraub asked D’Onofrio and Charlie Cox about their potential roles in Marvel’s forthcoming animated series Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man. Cox confirmed that Daredevil would appear in the show: “I went into the studio and did some voiceover for that a long time ago, during when I was shooting She-Hulk,” he said. “I saw the early drawings of it, but that's all I know. I haven't seen any of it. I have no idea what the story is.”

Related: Bloodied Jon Bernthal returns as Punisher in new Daredevil: Born Again set photos

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Kingpin’s status is more complicated, as the character has served as a key antagonist for both Daredevil, who is controlled by Marvel, and Sony’s Spider-Man. Wilson Fisk was the primary villain in the non-MCU 2018 animated film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, which means Sony definitely still maintains some claim to the character in an animated form — so it’s possible that Sony denied a Marvel request to use Fisk in an animated series.

D’Onofrio starred as the villainous business mogul Wilson Fisk opposite Cox’s Matt Murdock for three seasons of Daredevil on Netflix in the 2010s. When Marvel’s television strategy shifted upon the launch of Disney+, the fate of Netflix-based characters like Daredevil and Kingpin became uncertain, as there were no immediate plans to continue Netflix series on the new streaming platform.

Related: Daredevil: Born Again ditches head writers and directors as Marvel rethinks show

However, D’Onofrio’s Fisk appeared in two episodes of Hawkeye in 2021, and Cox’s Murdock made a brief cameo in Spider-Man: No Way Home around the same time, confirming that both characters would have a future in new MCU projects. D’Onofrio and Cox have both appeared in Echo, and Cox guest starred in two episodes of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law.

Now, Daredevil is being revived with a new streaming series: Daredevil: Born Again on Disney+, in which the two actors will star alongside their former costars Deborah Ann Woll and Elden Henson as Karen Page and Foggy Nelson, respectively. The 18-episode series is currently scheduled to premiere in March 2025.

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