After three failed attempts at the film box office, the Punisher has decided to target the small screen for his potential franchise.According to Deadline, a pilot for Marvel's Punisher is in development at Fox. Marvel is quite busy in both the movie and TV world with other live action TV projects in development including Hulk, Jessica Jones, Cloak and Dagger, and Mockingbird. The Punisher series will take the form of a gritty police procedural. This comes as a bit of a surprise because critics of the films seemed to always want the envelop to be pushed beyond what would be TV allowable. But even on Fox, there are limits to what is considered decent viewing, you know, for kids.
What does this all mean for Franken-Castle?
The first Punisher movie came out direct to video in 1989 about the same time as the cheap-o Captain America movie. The Dolph Lundgren starring film made less than a million dollars overseas and was yet another stone on the path to Marvel's bankruptcy. In 2004, Marvel gave old Frank Castle AKA the Punisher another try. Although this attempt was far and away the most successful, mustering nearly $55 million worldwide, the performance was till considered a disappointment.
In 2008, Punisher was rebooted in Punisher: War Zone which included a popular comic book villain Jigsaw. This foray earned just $10 million worldwide and it looked as if The Punisher was dead. But as we know, nothing stays dead in comics, and it looks like Frank Castle may rise again in 2012.
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