‘Deadpool’ Update: Fox signs ‘Zombieland’ team to write script..
Awesome!!! Our previous posts on the Merc with a Mouth here. Our posts on Zombieland, including a ComicCon panel with the writers, here.
Variety has it:
20th Century Fox is making progress with its “X-Men” spinoff, “Deadpool,” and has tapped “Zombieland” scribes Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick to pen the screenplay…….There is no timetable on the Marvel property, though Reynolds has a window after wrapping the “Green Lantern” this summer.
Reynolds has been bulking up to play the DC Comics’ hero “Green Lantern,” which starts lensing next month. This means he would already be in superhero shape if the script for “Deadpool” is ready by summer.
Reese and Wernick, who wrote “Zombieland,” will stay true to the mythology of “Deadpool” given that Reynolds is a huge fan and protector of the property.
The tone of “Deadpool,” which features an antihero as opposed to the more traditional heroic comicbook protagonist, is very similar in tone to “Zombieland.”
Reese and Wernick, high school friends who began collaborating in 2001, most recently sold the pitch “Earth vs. Moon” to Universal Pictures. The pair penned a draft of “Venom” for Sony/Marvel….
Deadpool & X-Men updates from Shuler-Donner…
Finally! Some word!!!
NewsinFilm has the scoop courtesy of an interview with Empire:
…Shuler-Donner confirms Hugh Jackman will be headed to Japan to shoot on location for X-Men Origins: Wolverine 2, or whatever the title will eventually be. The comic book storyline centers on the clawed mutant falling for Mariko Yashida, the heiress to the Yakuza crime family.
“Wolverine will be fighting in a different style to what we’ve seen before,” she said, indicating a battle between him and Mariko’s father, Shingen Yashida. It will involve “samurai, ninja, katana blades, different forms of martial arts — mano-a-mano, extreme fighting.” This plot also suggests a possible showdown with mutant supervillain Silver Samurai, but maybe I’m just stretching it. After all, who doesn’t want to see mutant ninjas?..
Highlights from the Empire interview (go read the whole thing!!!):
On Deadpool: “I don’t see it as a problem that Ryan [Reynolds] is also playing Green Lantern. I mean, look at Harrison Ford – he was in Stars Wars and Indiana Jones at the same time and everyone was fine with that. Green Lantern could not be more different to Wade Wilson. Green Lantern is a guy who finds a ring and is thrust into this world, much like Spider-Man. Wade Wilson is a bad ass, a wise-cracking mercenary, who will go out and kill anyone for money. But the thing about him is that, underneath it all, and he wouldn’t want you to know this, sometimes he’s not such a bad ass after all.”
On Wolverine 2: “It’s actually the story we wanted to use for the first Wolverine film, but [Fox head honcho] Tom Rothman preferred to set the character up with an origin story first. ”
On X-Men: First Class: “We want it to be like the recent, darker Potters. It should not be a kiddie movie: we’re in the X-Men world so you can’t suddenly change the tone. The First Class comics are really fun — they’re funnier than any other comics I’ve read. Basically in each one the kids are fighting strange villains, sometimes it’s aliens, sometimes it’s monsters. I want to get a flavour of that world.”
More on Deadpool:
“I want to ignore the version of Deadpool that we saw in Wolverine and just start over again. Reboot it. Because this guy talks, obviously, and to muzzle him would be insane….
INTERVIEW CONTINUES AFTER THE BREAK:
Moderate in the Middle 