Sunday, December 5, 2010 at 7:04AM "Get Your Act Together" 'Deadpool' Creator Tells Fox Studios
In this business, the creatives are usually at the mercy of the studios. It makes sense. They have the money, distribution, and a bunch of execs who are treated like gods in Hollywood. But every once in a while, an actor, actress, director, or in this case a comic-book artist for Marvel comes along and tells the studio to, "find your balls". Yeah that's exactly what he said, word for word.
That is what Rob Liefeld, the creator of Deadpool tweeted to show his displeasure for the delays in producing the film. He tweets, "Dear FOX studios, get your act together. Deadpool is not Green Lantern, not a family film. DP is 'filthy' think Expendables $ w/ RR. Also FOX, find your balls and film the script from ['Zombieland' writers] Rheese and Wernick. You will make loads of money and thank yourself later. It boils down to this, Ryan Reynolds, Mr. Sexiest Man alive paired with best comic script ever written, no-brainer.... make Deadpool happen!"
Now to be fair, Liefeld's risk in tweeting this is not that high given that 20th Century Fox already owns the rights to the film. Yeah, I know that Disney own Marvel but couple of Marvel's superheroes are owned by other studios. Given that Fox lost out on the Marvel and DC portfolio acquisition, they better make the few characters that they own count. So regardless of what Liefeld says, this film will get made and ultimately everyone will get paid.
Still, I always love it when creatives and artists tell the media empire what's up.
Reader Comments (6)
No. He sounds like a little comic-book geek twirp, that wants to oversee a probably 40 - 80 million dollar movie, and if you went to a bank and asked for money like that, do ya' think they'd give it to you? Maybe if he creates enough online noise he'll get some attention. But there's a lot of online noise out there. He's got a comic book movie in a movie environment where there is now an OCEAN of comic-book movies. There's a pecking order now and somebody has to be at the bottom or possibly, completely pecked out. Sometimes makin' noise will scare 'em off a bit and get you back up the order a little way. Mostly, it's just the noise you make before you completely go out.
j bradley is still a fag
They're probably waiting for indicators to see if they can go with this in the first quarter of '11. "Tron:Legacy" will bring in the videogame/comic book kids. They'll want to see how many. Since Aronofsky's doing "The Wolverine" maybe they want to see how "Black Swan" will do to see how big a following he has. "Greenlantern" and "Green Hornet" are other indicators. The downside of this comic book trend will come sometime, and they want to get an idea of when that'll be, so they don't get caught in it. Comic books are cheaper to produce than movies and just because the comics do well, doesn't mean a movie version will. Unless of course they can make the movie for the same price as the comic. Deadpool is NOT a summer tentpole movie. It's at best a spring or summer target audience/counter-programming thing. They're not gonna' spend 40-80 million and that's all they get back. If it's not gonna' bring 'em back 100 - 200 mil, they're not gonna' mess with it. They'll wait and see how much the others do first.
And lil' unconstructive fan boy - you still need a better education, a better job, and a better place to look for the sexual orientation you seem to be so interested in.
Hmm, you don't think they'll spend 40-80 million? I was actually thinking they'd spend near triple digits. I mean, Deadpool isn't one of the well known franchises but it's ultra-violent and they can make it appeal to the masses. Yeah, J. Bradley, just ignore that dude, I deleted his comments earlier but whatever, some people just have nothing better to do.
I'm only continuing this argument because it says something about the movie environment right now and sometimes appreciating movies is all about knowing what goes on behind the scenes.
Triple digits?! Not unless it's a property that's going to bring 'em back half-a-bil, a billion, or more. And an ultra-violent R-rated one at that?! Nah. I think they're content to let Disney and Marvel have their comic-book thing, let Warners have theirs - and if Fox and the others can get away with a "me too" comic book franchise priced right and it'll bring back the right payoff, then yeah, they'll do it. "Deadpool" is the kinda' thing they don't wanna' bet a whole lot on, or else they woulda' already moved on it. Now if they could tie it to Aronofsky's "Wolverine" AFTER IT does well, OR they can get some indication it WILL, THEN they might move on it. I think the other studios don't want to play the "me too" game and if they're going to do "comic book" movies to get an audience outside the audience for all the big, well-known, iconic characters, they'd rather go with something new like the "Suckerpunch"s and 'Underworld"s and so forth.
I agree with Liefeld. If Fox is afraid they won't get enough viewers, the fact that Reynolds is in it will be the reason some people will wanna see it. They should just go for it.