It’s not horror but the success of Twentieth Century Fox’s Deadpool was a huge deal for us.
The success of a film outside of the norm acts like a skeleton key, unlocking the chastity belts from all of the top level execs in Hollywood, giving them the ability to greenlight pretty much anything they want.
As of yesterday, all bets are off. Every single “risky” project (including many R-rated ventures) now has the ability to get the backing of a studio or financier that is normally afraid to take a chance on such films.
Lobo? Yup. A violent finale to Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine? You bet. Oh, maybe Todd McFarlane can finally get his long-gestured Spawn off the ground? He sure can. It even opens the door for Dimension to find the backing for a hugely risky Hellraiser reboot.
It really feels like this week is all about celebrating. It was a huge win for the artists and filmmakers begging the powers that be to take a chance on their off-note ideas that normally end in scoffs or eye-rolls in the pitch room. Shit, could we finally move past remaking everything?
The simple answer is that we could… yet, we most likely won’t.
History repeats itself, and here’s exactly what’s going to happen. All sorts of random projects will get greenlit and go into production. Execs will order many more into development. Then, one will eventually fail, thus shutting the door for good.
But it’s even deeper than that. When you really look at the history of copycat Hollywood, the problem is that the wrong lesson is going to be learned from the success of Deadpool. Instead of it becoming about taking risks, it becomes about taking risks that are similar to the superhero movie. It’ll be cloned with a lack of voice and lack of vision, which is what James Gunn, director of Guardians of the Galaxy is afraid will happen.
“After every movie smashes records people here in Hollywood love to throw out the definitive reasons why the movie was a hit. I saw it happen with ‘Guardians.’ It ‘wasn’t afraid to be fun’ or it ‘was colorful and funny’ etc etc etc. And next thing I know I hear of a hundred film projects being set up ‘like ‘Guardians,’’ and I start seeing dozens of trailers exactly like the ‘Guardians’ trailer with a big pop song and a bunch of quips. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.
“’Deadpool’ wasn’t that. ‘Deadpool’ was its own thing. THAT’S what people are reacting to. It’s original, it’s damn good, it was made with love by the filmmakers, and it wasn’t afraid to take risks. For the theatrical experience to survive, spectacle films need to expand their definition of what they can be. They need to be unique and true voices of the filmmakers behind them. They can’t just be copying what came before them.
“So, over the next few months, if you pay attention to the trades, you’ll see Hollywood misunderstanding the lesson they should be learning with ‘Deadpool’. They’ll be green lighting films ‘like ‘Deadpool’’ — but, by that, they won’t mean ‘good and original’ but ‘a raunchy superhero film’ or ‘it breaks the fourth wall.’ They’ll treat you like you’re stupid, which is the one thing ‘Deadpool’ didn’t do.
“But hopefully in the midst of all this there will be a studio or two that will take the right lesson from this — like Fox did with ‘Guardians’ by green-lighting ‘Deadpool’ — and say, ‘Boy, maybe we can give them something they don’t already have.’ And that’s who is going to succeed.”
While most will miss the point of Deadpool‘s success, it’s hard to think that Fox will be one of them. The studio has been on a forefront of risks, and was behind Guardians of the Galaxy and Deadpool, not to mention creating unique films from their Planet of the Apes, Alien and X-Men franchises.
We can only hope that all of the chatter translates to some wins for us in the horror genre. We desperately need studios to take risks and bring us original content that’s severely lacking outside of the indie world.
What do you guys think about all of this? It’s an extremely exciting time to be a movie fan and I think we can all be pumped to see what comes into fruition, whether it’s violent superhero adaptation or a unique and risky genre film.
(Oh, look at that… as I was writing this piece Fox stated the next Wolverine will be R-rated!)
