Deadpool spinoff

If both comic fans and casual moviegoers wondered why characters like Gambit and Wade Wilson (eventually Deadpool) were ham-handedly jammed into X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE, the answer is the obvious one: if the flick was a box office hit, Fox had built-in spinoff material.

As previously suspected (or assumed), Ryan Reynolds’ sword-swirling mutant will take his skills into a solo movie, following the unsurprising news of a WOLVERINE sequel. The DEADPOOL flick will supposedly go “back to the roots of the character known for his slapstick tone and propensity to break the fourth wall”, which means it will essentially need to ignore or erase his “evolution” as presented in WOLVERINE… which might be preferential to the character’s core fans. The project is currently seeking writers.

Ever since BLADE TRINITY, Reynolds has actively been discussing his desire to play the character (which he accurately describes as a “grotesquely scarred, morally flexible mercenary with a penchant for wise cracks and hyper-violence”), so at least he finally got his way after several years.

I have to be honest — I’ve read comics for a long time, but beyond a superficial level I never understood the fanboy infatuation with Deadpool (created by pouch-loving artist Rob Liefeld at a time when every new character name was some variant of Death, Night or Blood). That said, I don’t think there’s a better man for the part than Reynolds.