I haven’t watched True Blood in years (has anyone?), but the last I saw of it Jessica was one of the last good things going on that show. So it makes me happy that Deborah Ann Woll, who actually made that mess watchable, is moving on to bigger and better things as True Blood winds to a close. (No seriously—who’s still watching it?) The Hollywood Reporter announced yesterday that Woll has been cast as Karen Page in Marvel’s Netflix series, Daredevil.
Historically, Karen Page is Daredevil’s main squeeze who works in the legal office of his alter-ego, Matt Murdock. If you remember the Ben Affleck movie—though most of us have done our best to forget it—Ellen Pompeo (very) briefly played her. But she’s never been prominent on screen, so Marvel is touting this as the first she’s being “meaningfully” portrayed, making Woll the de facto female lead of the series. I guess this means we shouldn’t plan on seeing Elektra, Daredevil’s ninja-assassin lover nearly ruined once as played by Jennifer Garner, any time soon.
Choosing Karen over Elektra—the character who has name recognition with general audiences already—fits with Marvel’s approach to their Netflix shows. They’re touting this as a “street level” look at the world of superheroes; that while the Avengers fart around in their superhero clubhouse atop Stark Tower, down on the streets it’s up to homemade heroes like Daredevil to mete out justice. So we get regular gal Karen instead of murder machine Elektra. I’m fine with it—I’d rather Elektra, a notable badass in her own right, front her own project, should Marvel revive her.
This news comes just in time for next weekend’s Comic-Con in San Diego. Woll is popular with geek audiences, and joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe will only boost her profile more. And she’ll be going right to work as Daredevil is already filming in New York. Meanwhile, Joe Manganiello is still talking about that one time he played a male stripper.
