Stevenson was within the place of getting to do some “Punisher” analysis earlier than showing on display. He did not know a lot in regards to the character previous to the film, and was fairly shocked to search out out simply how violent the premise was. For these not within the know, The Punisher noticed his household murdered by gangsters and henceforth devoted his life to combating crime. His ways, nonetheless, are brutal; he normally dispatches criminals with weapons and bullets. Stevenson was startled, saying:
“I wasn’t aware of it to be real honest with you. I came to it when it was first broached to me. In all fairness, when I first read it, I thought, ‘This is just extremely violent. What the hell is this?’ But very quickly Garth Ennis’ writing sucked me right in. I thought, ‘My god, he doesn’t shy away!’ It does raise moral issues and psychological issues and he doesn’t pull away from it. He will throw it in there and commit to it. It was his writing that then brought me in.”
It was essential to Stevenson that the Punisher not emerge from the movie as heroic or aspirational. Stevenson was interested in the script’s dealing with of the character as a wounded, broken human being. In reality, Stevenson felt that the extra excessive the violence grew to become, the stronger the anti-violence message can be. If the Punisher, as an example, solely beat folks up like Batman, he may emerge as heroic, even noble. If he punches folks throughout their heads, nonetheless, one can see that he is considerably psychotic.