'Daredevil' star claims Marvel exec axed storylines because 'Nobody cares about Asian people'
Peter Shinkoda, who played Nobu in the Netflix Marvel show Daredevil, has alleged that one of the show's producers urged writers not to pen storylines about Asian characters.
Shinkoda made the claims during an online event devoted to bringing the show back to screens.
Appearing alongside Geoffrey Cantor, who played Mitchell, and Tommy Walker (Francis), Shinkoda said that the show's exec Jeph Loeb vetoed plans for a plot involving his character and that of Madame Gao, played by Wai Ching Ho.
Loeb was the executive vice president of Marvel Television, before it was folded into the larger Marvel Studios banner in 2019.
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“I'm not into really protecting, you know, certain things anymore but Jeph Loeb told the writers room not to write for Nobu and Gao and this was reiterated many times by many of the writers and showrunners,” Shinkoda said during the Save Daredevil-con live stream.
“He said, 'Nobody cares about Chinese people and Asian people. There were three previous Marvel movies, a trilogy called Blade that was made where Wesley Snipes killed 200 Asians each movie.
“'Nobody gives a sh*t so don't write about Nobu and Gao.' And they were forced to put their storyline down and drop it.”
He added that writers on the show 'had planned for months to write and implement into shooting but they were prevented.’
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“I have privy to that storyline, because they explained it to me, and they were very apologetic that they couldn’t follow through with it, but their hands were tied,” Shinkoda went on.
“It was very interesting, the storyline about having to go there under the guise of getting some kind of a transplant and medical reasons and a lot of paperwork and bureaucracy was fudged so that Nobu can get into the country.”
Yahoo Movies UK has contacted representatives for Loeb for comment.
Daredevil ran on Netflix for three series, from 2015 to 2018, but despite acclaim from fans and critics, it was cancelled ahead of a plotted fourth series.
Marvel series Jessica Jones, Luke Cage and Iron Fist were also cancelled around the same time.
