Sci-Fi Film and Television Developments

X-Men: Deadpool

9/15/10 – Blastr.com reported that Ryan Reynolds is still expected to play Marvel's antihero in the proposed Deadpool movie, a character he previously portrayed in X-Men Origins: Wolverine.  Reynolds told Heroes Complex the Deadpool movie won't be beholden to the events in Wolverine, which is good news for fans who weren't crazy about how the character was handled in that film. In fact, it's not going to be like any superhero movie you've seen before.  "It goes in such a different direction than a superhero movie usually goes. It's a nasty piece of work. It's just based in so much emotional filth, completely. It's like Barfly if it were a superhero movie. It sort of treads into the world of an emotionally damaged person. I always say that Deadpool is a guy in a highly militarized shame spiral. ... It's so different than the superhero movies to date, it departs so far from that."  The script for Deadpool is the work of Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick.  Deadpool, aka Wade Wilson, is a merc for hire, created by a shady and sinister government program, with healing abilities resembling those of Wolverine, making him quite hard to kill.  "With Deadpool, it's a lot like going to prison for the first day. You got to walk up and hit the biggest guy you see to establish a bit of cred. With Deadpool, early on you have to establish that moral flexibility. There's a gamble to it -- you're going to lose a few people right at the beginning, but you take the gamble and know that eventually you're going to win them back. You won't lose the hardcore fans of the character; they already know who he is. We have to play to a broader audience than that. As an actor you have to be willing to do something like ... back in Vancouver we used to call it a [nasty] burger. 'You gotta eat the [nasty] burger to get to the cookies.' And yes, I want to write a cookbook about that ..."  Deadpool is planned for a 2012 release.

1/6/10 - 20th Century Fox is making progress with its X-Men spinoff, Deadpool, and has tapped Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick to pen the screenplay, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Ryan Reynolds will reprise his role as the wisecracking mercenary he portrayed in last year's X-Men Origins: Wolverine. There is no timetable on the Marvel property, though Reynolds has a window after wrapping the Green Lantern this summer. Lauren Shuler Donner is producing.

6/1/09 - Ryan Reynolds, who played Deadpool in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, told reporters Sunday that a spinoff movie is in the works, that he's actively involved and that he's eager to match up with other Marvel heroes.  "Look, I'm into any role in which I get to kick Captain America in the nuts," Reynolds said.  Any such specific encounters are still up in the air, though, as the Deadpool script is far from finished. "Yeah, it's in the works," he said. "That's about all I can really say. They're actively hashing it out."  Reynolds added that he has been involved in the creative process. "I'm meeting with them all the time," he said. "We're in constant contact, and it's just a matter of breaking the spine of the story and figuring out what it is and who's the villain."  The movie would focus on Reynolds' Wolverine character, who started out as a motor-mouthed expert swordsman and morphs into a multi-powered supervillain.

5/6/09 - The success of X-Men Origins: Wolverine has spurred Fox to ramp up development of its expected spinoff featuring Deadpool, the wise-cracking mercenary played in the film by Ryan Reynolds, according to The Hollywood Reporter.  Reynolds is attached to reprise the character for what for now is simply being called Deadpool. Lauren Shuler Donner and Marvel Studios would act as producers.  Deadpool is known as "the merc with a mouth," a character who under Reynolds lived up to his billing in Wolverine until the end, when the movie deviated from the comic-book persona, imbuing him with several superpowers and sewing his mouth shut.  It is understood that Reynolds would regain the ability to mouth off, with the movie going back to the roots of the character known for his slapstick tone and propensity to break the fourth wall. The character also was disfigured in Wolverine, though it's unclear at this time how much the studio would want to mess with Reynolds' face.  The project is out to writers.

9/10/08 - 20th Century Fox is mulling the possibility of more X-Men spinoff movies, including a young X-Men project as well as Deadpool, based on a character played by Ryan Reynolds in the upcoming X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Variety reported.  The report is part of a story assessing the studio's lackluster box-office performance during the summer of 2009.

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