In Contention

Tag: Scott Adkins

  • Deadpool will get his own movie and ‘Green Lantern’ might have its star

    Deadpool“X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE” SPOILERS THROUGHOUT THIS POST.  YOU’VE BEEN WARNED.

    If you saw “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” over the weekend, then you know this is most certainly not what comic fans know as Deadpool.  I don’t know what the hell it was, to be honest, but then again, Ryan Reynolds wasn’t the guy playing…it.  Scott Adkins from “The Bourne Ultimatum” was credited as Weapon XI, so there are outs.

    Well, the race to spin off from the spin-off first has ended with Rob Liefeld’s creation getting the solo Hollywood treatment.  The Hollywood Reporter gives us the following, with MAJOR “Wolverine” SPOILERS (via Liefeld’s Twitter page):

    Reynolds is attached to reprise the character for what for now is simply being called “Deadpool.” Lauren Shuler Donner and Marvel Studios would act as producers.

    Deadpool is known as “the merc with a mouth,” a character that under Reynolds lived up to his billing in “Wolverine” until the end, when the movie deviated from the comic book persona, imbuing him with several superpowers and sewing his mouth shut.

    It is understood that Reynolds would regain the ability to mouth off, with the movie going back to the roots of the character known for his slapstick tone and propensity to break the fourth wall. The character also was disfigured in “Wolverine,” though it’s unclear at this time how much the studio would want to mess with Reynolds’ handsome mug.

    The project is out to writers.

    Fox considered a “Deadpool” spinoff early in “Wolverine’s” development process, which is why it cast Reynolds. The actor was brought back in the month before the movie’s release to shoot one of two “Easter egg” scenes that appeared after the end credits. The scene showed Deadpool alive, though when last audiences saw him, he appeared to be dead.

    …which, of course, takes none of the “outs” into the scenario, so who knows what the hell is going on.  One thing is for sure: this is a project destined to lose money if the production budget gets too out of hand.  “Elektra” numbers, maybe.  Unless the film gets some supporting character help.  The general audience doesn’t know Deadpool from a circus acrobat, after all.

    Sigh…

    (Also in comic casting news, it looks like Bradley Cooper, from “The Hangover” and television’s “Alias,” is being seriously considered for the lead role in “The Green Lantern.”)

  • REVIEW: “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” (**)

    X-Men Origins: WolverineAfter weeks of bad press following an unanticipated work print leak and rampant speculation that the film was likely to be D.O.A., both financially and creatively, the best thing one can say about “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” is that it wasn’t as awful as expected.  But positivity hits a brick wall after that concession.

    In a genre that only seems to spark when filmmakers come at the material from a place of passion, Gavin Hood’s prequel to Fox’s “X-Men” franchise comes across like an anonymous, factory-assembled piece of corporate product with no personality and no thematic virtue.

    What it lacks in quality it doesn’t exactly make up for in spectacle, and while it is more centered on character than story, it nevertheless skims the surface where that is concerned.  A film that might have had something for everyone nearly offers nothing for no one.

    Hugh Jackman dons the too-tight jeans and adamantium talons for the fourth time in nine years as James Logan, a hyper-healing mutant with a shady (and lengthy) past.  Screenwriters David Benioff and Skip Woods borrow and manipulate Marvel’s “Origin” mini-series at will, especially in the early portions of the film, to give a vague point of entry that neither gives the audience a nuanced portrait of the character nor Jackman the proper material in which to invest himself.

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