Marvel casts The Walking Dead's Jon Bernthal as The Punisher

Diehard Marvel fans have probably already binge-watched the entirety of Netflix's Daredevil, but a new bit of casting is sure to whet appetites for season two. Today, Marvel announced that Jon Bernthal — best known as Rick Grimes' duplicitous best friend Shane on AMC's The Walking Dead — has been cast as the antihero Frank Castle, better known as The Punisher, in Daredevil's upcoming second season.
Though The Punisher has long been popular with Marvel Comics fans, efforts to spin him off into his own franchise have repeatedly failed, including 2004's The Punisher (starring Thomas Jane) and 2008's Punisher: War Zone (starring Ray Stevenson). Given the success Marvel had using Netflix to reboot Daredevil after a failed big-screen outing, maybe this is just the reintroduction Frank Castle needs.
Daredevil's second season is slated to premiere sometime in 2016.
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Scott Meslow is the entertainment editor for TheWeek.com. He has written about film and television at publications including The Atlantic, POLITICO Magazine, and Vulture.
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