Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool. (20th Century Fox)
When Deadpool appeared on the big screen for the first time in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, a little piece of me died.
It could have been amazing. It should have been amazing.
The casting wasn’t wrong. Ryan Reynolds can be faulted for a lot of things, but his personality and presence was perfect for the character. Casual fans unfamiliar with Wade Winston Wilson probably didn’t enter the theater knowing the character’s cadence, his incessant running dialogue, his propensity to break the fourth wall, or his profane sense of humor.
Leaving the theater, those audiences still didn’t know who Deadpool was. The PG-13 movie stripped out everything that made him fun, even sewing his mouth shut in the final act just in case there was any doubt about how little they cared.
It was terrible and seemed like the only time we’d see the Merc with a Mouth on the big screen. A Deadpool spinoff film languished in development for the next few years. Reynolds went on and made Green Lantern. This movie was never going to get made.
Then this video surfaced (Warning: Coarse Language).
It wasn’t even two minutes long but it was perfect, and people loved it.
Marvel and 20th Century Fox apparently agreed, and announced Thursday afternoon that Deadpool would finally get his due in 2016.
We should all be cheering, celebrating, weeping joyful tears at this news. But we should also be praying.
Praying that no one screws this up. Please don’t screw this one up.
The Guardians of the Galaxy laid out a perfect blueprint for how this movie should be made. It was pithy, irreverent, and utterly self aware, and everything that has eluded Marvel films made at 20th Century Fox. Here is the perfect opportunity to make amends for every misstep of the past decade (except for Elektra. That was unforgivable).
But Fox has to be willing to go all in and embrace everything that makes the character great. That also means allowing Deadpool to be an R-rated movie, which is a rare occurrence and almost unheard of for mainstream comic book films.
The risk is worth it. Guardians proved that you can get a little weird.
Let Deadpool get weird.
