The Punisher: One Last Kill Director Defends Controversial Moment

The Punisher: One Last Kill is out now on Disney+, and it gives us the Frank Castle inside look that we’ve always wanted in this era of Marvel TV. The director of the special Reinaldo Marcus Green recently sat down with our friend Brandon Davis of The Brandon Davis Show provided to ThatHollywoodShow for an exclusive early listen and he talked all things Punisher.

They got to talking about the controversial moment right at the beginning of the special that certainly hit me hard as someone who has and loves dogs.

“Look, I just want to qualify. I love dogs, and I it was hard for me to man. It was. John Wick is waiting. It was. Yeah. Pretty much it was. It was really hard, man, and nobody wants to see that kind of violence.”

“We knew where our character ended in this Special and, in order to, for that moment to pay off, it felt like that payoff was stronger with that scene at the beginning of the film, where society is and where we’ve gotten to, where the Punisher is when we meet him. I think it was important to have something of that gravity to hook people in. It’s hard and it is sort of a cardinal rule in filmmaking.”

Marcus had to even ask Jon Bernthal if he was okay with doing this on the special. Bernthal was a co-writer of the special for the first time in his career.

“I was like,’ Jon, are you sure we should do this? This is this is pretty, pretty harsh stuff.’ And look, Jon, his father was like the head of the Humane society, so you could not ask for a more… I mean, Jon has his pitbulls, and I mean, he’s a dog lover. So, if it were not motivated by the character, there was no reason for that to be in this Special at all and we questioned that until the very, very end through the test screenings.

Ultimately, Green concluded, “We just felt like it was vital to this particular piece which is why we kept it in there. So, we stand by the decision. This is from animal lovers ourselves. In terms of where Frank’s character ends up, we felt like like it was important to keep him in this piece.”

I was struck by the moment and knew that they wouldn’t give us that without the bastard getting his just punishment from Frank. Luckily for all of us, that moment was saved for the very end of the special.

Here’s what I had to say about The Punisher: One Last Kill in my review.

The portion where Frank is kind of shellshocked and vulnerable is the most interesting aspect of the entire special. Bernthal gives off a natural tough-guy energy, but there’s a massive vulnerability underneath that facade here. Frank is tormented by the ghosts of his past, whether that’s his family, his friends, or his time in combat. It adds a new layer that we don’t get to see with him, which makes when that switch flips in the middle of the special all the more satisfying.

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