Okay, so Fox tried with Daredevil once before, but the origin story directed by Mark Steven Johnson and starring Ben Affleck failed to really connect.  Fox is keen to start from scratch with a new creative team, but in order to retain the rights to the character, a film would have to actually be in production by October 10th.  Faced with that nigh-impossible deadline before the rights revert to Marvel, the studio is apparently working out a deal with Marvel that would prove mutually beneficial.

In order to get an extension on Daredevil, Fox might be willing to trade certain characters back to Marvel.  According to Variety, these characters include Fantastic Four fixtures Silver Surfer and Galactus, both of which would be right at home in the increasingly cosmic Marvel cinematic universe.  Both of these characters were previously committed to celluloid in 2007's Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, where Galactus' herald had the distinction of being the best thing in a bad movie and the world-eater himself was just a faceless, planet-devouring space cloud.

If the trade-off does take place, that would mean neither character could show up in Fox's rebooted Fantastic Four franchise.  Chronicle director Josh Trank is officially on board that film, with Jeremy Slater, and the studio is looking to get going on that after its upcoming X-based movies.

It would give them time to mount the new Daredevil, though.  And apparently Fox has selected Joe Carnahan to helm the down and dirty take on the blind lawyer/protector of Hell's Kitchen.  Carnahan, who also directed Narc, The Grey, Smokin' Aces, and The A-Team has not been formally offered the job, but Variety's unnamed sources claim he's in discussions and is definitely the man Fox wants to bring back Matt Murdock, whose gritty existence doesn't quite fit with the poppier tone of Marvel Studios and Disney.

Hard Candy and The Twilight Saga: Eclipse director David Slade was developing the new Daredevil for over a year.  Last month, we learned that his commitment to direct the pilot for NBC's Hannibal Lector series caused him to opt out of the reboot, however.  Slade was working with screenwriter David James Kelly as well as Bradley Caleb Kane before him. Their story was based on "Born Again," the 1986 comic arc from Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli.

Carnahan has several different options at this point, including a Death Wish remake, but if he signs on to Daredevil, that would probably take precedence.

So.  Let's hope this works out and we get to see Galactus gobbling up planets in a shared Marvel universe.