Last week it was Avengers: Infinity War Memes. Within the space of half an hour of the trailer landing online, social media timelines were absolutely flooded with a combination of hastily constructed Black Panther (Get this man a….) memes, or pictures of Josh Brolin’s Thanos mocked up as either Homer Simpson or that fella off of Pawn Stars. Now, it’s the Disney FOX deal – and this time, from Ryan Reynolds.
For writers the likes of me who tend to maintain membership in a number of Marvel forums and groups in order to harvest rumors and fan theories, this sudden development got pretty damn tedious. Very quickly. Mainly, it was the repetition. You can only witness the same recycled image either repeatedly posted to the same pages by attention-hungry fans, or badly copied and resubmitted by other attention-hungry fans. Today though has changed everything.
That’s right, unless you’ve only just emerged (28 Days Later-style) from an accident-induced coma, you should be painfully aware by now that the ‘House Of Mouse’ has gone and bought up 21st Century Fox’s entertainment arm for a cool $52 BILLION dollars. Which is the most exciting thing to happen to the movie industry, like ever? Right? Well, yes. And to a certain extent, no…
The biggest and most blindingly obvious benefit from this utterly bonkers business deal is that Marvel have now regained the rights to both the X-Men, and the Fantastic Four. This naturally paves the way for existing or new versions of their associated characters to be bought over into the fold of the MCU. Which is all fine, and all dandy. Because a byproduct of that means that both Logan and Deadpool can also make their way across the divide. A prospect that one actor in particular seems less than impressed about.
The stellar success of the recent solo outings of both of these characters can be fully attributed to the brutal and uncompromising levels of violence depicted in each. As the Marvel Cinematic Universe has started to experience its first couple of critical failures and a small degree of fan backlash, they’ve seen fans migrating away from their own properties to Fox’s R-Rated alternatives, craving something fresh and different.
Nobody understands all of this better than Ryan Reynolds. Hugely invested in the creation and marketing of the Deadpool movies, and already considerably bruised and battered from three appearances in sub-par superhero movies prior to his recent success as Wade Wilson, Reynolds immediately took to Twitter to share his creeping discomfort at the prospect of possible Disney interference in his future movies.
Time to uncork that explosive sexual tension between Deadpool and Mickey Mouse. https://t.co/iUEXofWpRu
— Ryan Reynolds (@VancityReynolds) December 6, 2017
First up, he fired off a short tweet suggesting that the studio merger might finally be able to smooth over some of the deep sexual tension that Deadpool and Mickey Mouse feel for one another. He then backed this up by posting a mock-up of Deadpool being escorted out of DisneyLand by a burly security guard, having clearly somehow displeased his new owners.
Apparently you can’t actually blow the Matterhorn. pic.twitter.com/2bEAAcZrUv
— Ryan Reynolds (@VancityReynolds) December 14, 2017
The underlying message being highlighted by Reynolds isn’t too hard to interpret. The approach to film-making between the two studios could not be more different, with Fox’s brave and radical approach creating exciting movies that are easily superior to their MCU equivalents. A Disneyf-ied Deadpool or Logan might not be such a good idea, after all…
When studios prioritizes profits over creative talent, and dilute material in order to try and broaden a film’s appeal to a wider audience, the results are rarely good. We saw it with Green Lantern, Blade: Trinity and also with Wolverine: Origins. The argument Reynolds is making is clear. When things ain’t broke, don’t get thinking to fix them.
Of course, you only need to look at the Defenders partnership between Netflix and Marvel to demonstrate the studio isn’t fully against material containing extreme violence. Hopefully it won’t be too long before Disney and Marvel announce what ideas they have to join up all the different elements they now own. And then the fun can begin…