While fans were flabbergasted at how poorly the Deadpool character was portrayed in X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE, you cannot fault that the sarcastic and smarmy Ryan Reynolds is not the best choice to play the Merc with the Mouth, provided they bring the real Deadpool to the big screen. Reynolds has championed the character for years and has often provided updates on the status of the movie at 20th Century Fox. As of today, DEADPOOL still has writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick (ZOMBIELAND, G.I. JOE: RETALIATION) and director Tim Miller attached but no real progress has been made on when we can expect the movie. Reynolds told the following to TotalFilm:
“That movie is alive and kicking, and then it’s dead as a doornail. Then it’s alive and kicking and then it’s dead… it’s like the worst relationship I’ve ever had!”
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Part of the hesitation could be that Fox wants the movie to be PG-13 and Reese/Miller refuse to do anything but an R-rated DEADPOOL. The screenwriters feel they can get DEADPOOL made on a $50 million budget since the movie would not need nearly the scope of movies like THE AVENGERS or MAN OF STEEL. We have not had many successful R-rated superhero movies outside of the BLADE trilogy, but with the surge of popularity for this character due to his video game and appearances in other comics, it seems like a no-brainer for this to finally happen.
Reynolds also said this:
“The character knows he’s a comic-book character, he knows he’s in a film, he knows who the executives are at the studio making the movie. In the current iteration of the script, Deadpool is aware of the Wolverine movie. He doesn’t say anything disparaging about it but he does at one point play with the Deadpool action figure with some curiosity.
“[Deadpool] is risky for everybody involved… It’s not as commercial as [the studio heads] would like it to be. It’s a property that is excessively popular and successful, just as a comic property. So you certainly don’t want to mess that up. And if you’re a studio you certainly don’t want to be put something out there that you can’t get back.”
Here's hoping DEADPOOL happens sooner rather than later. I just hope if they decide to go with someone besides Ryan Reynolds that it be someone with as much love and respect for the source character.
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