The Internet has been abuzz in the past few weeks with talk of the Daredevil reboot. David Slade, who boarded the project back in 2011, exited the director’s chair early last month, and Fox wanted director Joe Carnahan (The Grey, Smokin’ Aces) in his place, for a gritty take on the original material.

But with Fox facing a 10th October deadline before the rights reverted back to Marvel, it looked like the studio could run out of time before getting the project off the ground, and Variety reports unfortunately exactly that has happened.

They had requested an extension, which was unfortunately declined, and now they have no choice but to allow the rights to Daredevil to go back to Marvel.

Carnahan took a retro, Serpico-styled superhero pitch to Fox, but unfortunately, the timing just wasn’t right, with the director taking to Twitter to say,

“Guys. To clarify. DD pitch was tremendous and everyone flipped for it. The clock ticked down at Fox, that’s why it went tits up.”

Thankfully, however, he has given us the two sizzle reels he took to Fox, uploading them to YouTube for our viewing pleasure in two forms – one, an NC-17-rated reel, not suitable for work/anyone under seventeen; the other, PG-13, so more suitable for the working environment should you be reading this at your desk.

Marvel have of course been incredibly busy in recent years bringing us the awesomeness that has been Phase One of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, culminating in this year’s blockbuster success, The Avengers. And with an active development of Iron Man 3, Thor: The Dark World, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Guardians of the Galaxy, and The Avengers 2, along with talk of Edgar Wright’s Ant-Man feature, it will be interesting to see whether the studio will be putting Daredevil into production in the near future, once the rights revert.

For now, we’ll just have to enjoy these great little sizzle reels, and imagine what could have been.