In this edition of The Week in Spandex, we look at Deadpool, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Deadpool 2, Wolverine 3, Legion, Captain America: Civil War, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Ant-Man and the Wasp, Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Agent Carter, Ultimate Spider-Man vs. The Sinister 6, Guardians of the Galaxy, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Justice League, Suicide Squad, Wonder Woman, Supergirl, The Flash, Arrow, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, LEGO DC Comics Super Heroes – Justice League: Cosmic Clash, Spawn and more…
After kicking off the 2016 superhero season last week, 20th Century Fox has been celebrating a huge success with its R-rated X-Men spinoff Deadpool; the film has been shattering box office records left, right and centre, pulling in a record February opening in both North America and here in the UK, and enjoying the biggest opening weekend ever for an R-rated movie with $132 million in the States and a $260 million worldwide. In Russia, it even managed to outperform Star Wars: The Force Awakens. It’s the biggest opening ever for Ryan Reynolds, the biggest opening ever for a first time director in Tim Miller, and by close of play on Thursday it had made $333 million worldwide, which was about how much I predicted it would make during its entire box office run. Silly me…
Be sure to check out Flickering Myth’s reviews of Deadpool here, here, here and here, along with the Flickering Myth Podcast review here, FM Jump Cut’s ‘The True Genius of Deadpool‘ here, Luke Owen’s controversial op-ed ‘Is Deadpool Ridiculously Overrated?’ here, and a featurette exploring the film’s VFX here…
…Deadpool director Tim Miller has been discussing the film’s time in development hell, stating that Fox “didn’t get it” until the leaking of the test footage: ““Fox told me a number. “They said, ‘Here’s where the budget needs to be if we’re gonna do this as an R-rated film.’ The number had to start with a four. And then it was up to the point where the senior execs at Fox were looking at it. [Fox chairman] Tom Rothman just said, ‘No. We don’t get it.’ Tom told me, ‘Love your passion but I just don’t care for the script. Don’t get it.’ To be fair, some things had changed from between the time when we first started talking and when we proposed the budget. Green Lantern had come out and that hadn’t helped Ryan’s career. Plus, I was a first-time director. It’s a particular confluence of momentum and money and talent that leads to any movie getting made… I wrote an email once a month or so to the Fox executives, saying ‘Please tell me who I have to fuck to get this going?’ And the answer was, ‘It’s not the right time, we appreciate your passion,’” he continues. “I wrote a lot of emails and I’m sure I annoyed the shit out of them. At one point I asked if a PG-13 would move the needle and then they let me do a more sanitized version of the script. We lost a few ‘fucks’ and we lost a few sexual references. But we didn’t have to adjust the violence at all. Wolverine is stabbing people with swords on his hands and that’s happily PG-13.”
…Ryan Reynolds has been casting his mind back to his first outing as Deadpool, saying that he felt “blackmailed” into portraying Wade Wilson in X-Men Origins: Wolverine: “They sew his mouth shut, let lasers come out of his eyes. He has weird knives that fly out of his hands. I remember saying, ‘That’s really going to anger some people. That’s not Deadpool.’ And they basically said, ‘Well, you can play him or we can hire someone else to play him.’ So for me it was…I was a little bit blackmailed…”
…Last week we brought you some comments from Deadpool screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick about the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier, and now the duo have revealed how they managed to sneak in another MCU Easter egg in Bob, Agent of Hydra: “That’s why he’s just called Bob,” states Wernick. “The hardcore fans will go, ‘Oh my God, is that Hydra Bob?’ but the lawyers at Marvel won’t go, ‘Wait, that’s Hydra Bob, they don’t have the rights to it.’ We did take some liberties. Fox has a list of characters that they own and that we can use, and Simon Kinberg, who is a producer on the project, is the keeper of the X universe. So he was a great source for us in knowing what we can use, how it’s going to play into the larger story, and overall arching stories of the X universe. So between Simon and legal, they kind of guided us to what we can and can’t do or have access to, and then it was up to us to see how we were going to use those characters creatively, once we knew we really did have the rights…”
…With Deadpool 2 announced and Cable expected to feature, Avatar star Stephen Lang has been taking to social media to lobby for the role of Nathan Summers…
…Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn took to social media to share his thoughts on the success of Deadpool, and how Hollywood will misinterpret it: “After every movie smashes records people here in Hollywood love to throw out the definitive reasons why the movie was a hit. I saw it happen with Guardians. It ‘wasn’t afraid to be fun’ or it ‘was colorful and funny’ etc etc etc. And next thing I know I hear of a hundred film projects being set up ‘like Guardians,’ and I start seeing dozens of trailers exactly like the Guardians trailer with a big pop song and a bunch of quips. Ugh… So, over the next few months, if you pay attention to the trades, you’ll see Hollywood misunderstanding the lesson they should be learning with Deadpool. They’ll be green lighting films ‘like Deadpool‘ – but, by that, they won’t mean ‘good and original’ but ‘a raunchy superhero film’ or ‘it breaks the fourth wall.’ They’ll treat you like you’re stupid, which is the one thing Deadpool didn’t do. But hopefully in the midst of all this there will be a studio or two that will take the right lesson from this – like Fox did with Guardians by green-lighting Deadpool – and say – ‘Boy, maybe we can give them something they don’t already have…'” You can read Gunn’s comments in full here…
…It would seem that Fox is looking to replicate the success of Deadpool with Hugh Jackman’s final outing as Logan, with a pamphlet from Toy Fair suggesting that Wolverine 3 has an anticipated R-rating, while Simon Kinberg has also suggested that the potential X-Force movie could go down the same route: “I think there are some stories that could be R-rated. I don’t know what they are, I mean I think the mainline X-Men movies have their own tone, which is a more operatic tone. It’s more dramatic, it is more PG-13 in a way. X-Force I could see being R-rated, and who knows..?”
…The upcoming X-Men TV series Legion has a new addition to its cast, with news this week that Jeremie Harris (The Get Down) will play Ptonomy, “an outsider by nature, stand-offish and sardonic, who is a former child prodigy who feels trapped in the past”. Harris joins the already-announced Dan Stevens (The Guest), Aubrey Plaza (Dirty Grandpa) and Fargo stars Rachel Keller and Jean Smart…
…Moving on to the Marvel Cinematic Universe and this week has seen the arrival of a new piece of promo art for Captain America: Civil War featuring ‘Team Cap’ [see here], along with an Empire cover featuring Cap and Iron Man [see here] and Marvel Legends figures featuring Cap, Iron Man, Black Panther, Falcon and Scarlet Witch [see here]. Meanwhile, Anthony Mackie has suggested that Civil War is Marvel’s best movie to date, as well as potentially letting slip that Mark Ruffalo’s Incredible Hulk may make an appearance in film after all, while Chris Evans has spoken about the storyline, and in particular the conflict between Steve Rogers and Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark: “Even though there are a lot characters, the focus is on Steve and his struggle. Especially his struggle with Tony Stark…It’s exciting to see a guy who’s as optimistic and as selfless as Steve be met with letdown, betrayal, frustration, and selfishness. There are events and people in his life that test him — that challenge him and force him to reevaluate who he is and what he wants out of life…”
…Marvel and James Gunn officially announced the start of production on Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2. this week, releasing a first look teaser image for the sequel, as well as revealing that Kurt Russell (The Hateful Eight), Elizabeth Debicki (The Man from U.N.C.L.E.), Chris Sullivan (The Drop) and Pom Klementieff (Oldboy) will join returning stars Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Michael Rooker, Karen Gillan, Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper, Sean Gunn, and Glenn Close. Accompanying the announcement was the very first brief synopsis, which reads: “Set to the all-new sonic backdrop of Awesome Mixtape #2, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 continues the team’s adventures as they unravel the mystery of Peter Quill’s true parentage…”
…Oscar nominee Adam McKay has confirmed that he looks set to return for scriptwriting duties on the Ant-Man sequel Ant-Man and the Wasp: “We’ve been talking to Marvel actually. We just talked to them the other day, and it looks like I will be involved. I don’t know if it’s gonna be right from page one. But it looks like I will definitely be involved. There you go. There’s a little headline for the fanboys…”
…Click below to continue on for Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Agent Carter, Ultimate Spider-Man vs. The Sinister 6, Guardians of the Galaxy, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Justice League, Suicide Squad, Wonder Woman, Supergirl, The Flash, Arrow, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, LEGO DC Comics Super Heroes – Justice League: Cosmic Clash, Spawn and more…
