Marvel has a better track record with movie adaptations of their comics, through their numbers at the very least. They’ve been hit and miss in some cases, but at least they didn’t make Howard the Duck… oh wait. Well either case they have more movies that have actually gotten out of development hell.
One of the quickest spin offs Marvel has been working on thus far is a movie based on Deadpool, the Merc with a Mouth. Deadpool was played by Ryan Reynolds in a criminally small part with in Xmen Origins: Wolverine. Despite his incredibly small role in the movie, Marvel has started development on a spin off focused around Deadpool staring Ryan Reynolds.
A concern of mine, and I’m sure many fans of Deadpool’s, was how he would be portrayed in the spin off. His appearance and often hilarious breaking of the fourth wall is what made him unique, of which he had neither in the Wolverine movie.
Rob Liefeld, one of Deadpool’s creators, twittered about his meeting with Lauren Schuler-Donner, the movie’s producer last night. Liefeld said that Donner understood what made the character and that they are headed in the right direction. He also made reference to possibly seeing Cable, Mutant and frequent partner to Deadpool, in a future X-men movie.
Great news about Deadpool, not so great news about what’s next. A second Ghost Rider movie is being worked on with David S. Goyer in the talks to write the script. Goyer is known for contributing to the Blade movie scripts and the recent Batman movies, as well as co-creating the upcoming TV series FlashForward. His pedigree speaks loudly about his attachment, but he has yet to officially sign up for the movie.
While the first movie, by nearly all counts, was a rather crappy movie, the intention here seems to be to not make a sequel to that movie. Nicolas Cage, star of the movie, seems to realize that the first movie was bad(despite not realizing that about everything else he’s done in the past 10 years). The consensus seems to be to reboot the series, or retcon the events of the first for the second movie. It seemed to work for the Hulk, so it might work.
A recent Variety article makes mention of some other Marvel movies being quietly made by Fox. A Daredevil reboot, and a Silver Surfer movie are being developed are apparently being moved forward. While it’s unlikely that Affleck will return for the Daredevil reboot with his stance on getting Kevin Smith to direct it if he did, this sounds promising.
The Dark Knight has made the idea of a darker comic book movie more than plausible. There have been rumors of a Fantastic Four reboot following in the same footsteps, so a Silver Surfer stand alone movie might not be tied to such a dramatically terrible film anymore.
The Daredevil movie had a great first act, but Bullseye’s roll and Kingpin was always the movie’s weakest point. To see a more darker, perhaps heavily influenced by Frank Miller’s arcs, Daredevil movie would be a great accomplishment.
All of this being said, none of it is set in stone. Comic book movie adaptations roll in and out of the Hollywood rumor mill and development stages in incredibly frustrating ways. Watchmen took over 20 years to make, so take all of this with a incredibly small grain of salt.
Deadpool Will Break the Fourth Wall and Wear the Costume, Says Rob Liefeld [Slashfilm]
Columbia is Definitely Rolling Forward With Ghost Rider 2; Daredevil and Silver Surfer Projects Confirmed [Slashfilm]