Way back in March there was a sudden flurry of Deadpool activity when Ryan Reynolds and director Tim Miller hit a studio to produce three minutes of stall-setting test footage. After that, it seemed that precisely nothing happened once again. The dedicated Reynolds and Miller, however, have both spoken out again in recent days to insist that the Merc with the Mouth will not be silenced{
To Miller first, who told Clevver movies that the satirical, self-aware Marvel property is "getting closer to a greenlight". "We will never give up!" he raved. "**Deadpool **is still alive and we're just waiting for the studio to embrace what an amazingly fucking awesome film this would be. Ryan is ready, I am ready, the fans are more than ready, we just need that elusive green light!"
Talking to Yahoo meanwhile, Reynolds concurs that, "Within the last couple of weeks we've taken a few very, very small tiptoes forward". He also reveals that "in its current iteration [written by Zombieland's Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick] the movie's actually very small. There's minimal impact to the studio, which is the way we're kind of presenting it to them. We're saying, 'Look, the budget is minimal. Therefore, can we do it the way that it should be done... [with] a rated-R?' It needs those elements."
A similar approach worked for the Riddick team with Universal, although in that instance the film was actually mounted as an indie and only sold to the studio afterwards. The Marvel rights connection means that Deadpool has to go through Fox all the way, and the violent tone of the work is clearly a sticking point at board levels. Arguably Fox ought to be looking at the Blade and Punisher films as reference points rather than at Iron Man and The Avengers, but for the money men those could also be seen as the exceptions that prove the rule...
Whatever, it's aparent that Deadpool is still a way off yet, although Reynolds says that, if he was a betting man, he'd expect it "in our lifetime"... As always, we'll keep you up to date, but in the meantime, be sure to listen to Reynolds himself on the Empire Podcast below, where he talks about just how meta this film could get...