20th Century Fox has a lot on their plate with their comic book films. They currently have Daredevil, Fantastic Four and an X-Men First Class sequel in different development stages. David Slade (Hard Candy, 30 Days of Night) is set to direct the Daredevil reboot and Josh Trank in talks for Fantastic Four. Matthew Vaughn is still being pursued to return for First Class 2 but hasn't signed on.
Two projects that have been delayed include the spin-off/reboot Deadpool and the Japanese saga The Wolverine. TheGeekFiles reports that a source from Fox confirms both films will go into production within the year. I assume they're still aiming for a summer 2013 release date for The Wolverine and I expect a late summer/fall 2013 release for Deapool. He's a rundown of the two movies and what's happened since their original announcements.
The Wolverine is expected to more of a one-off than a sequel to the Origins film. Taking inspiration from the Japanese saga written by Frank Miller and Chris Claremont. Solid source material considering the mess the first film was. The terrible disaster that effected Japan pushed back the Wolverine's original 2011 production date which was expected to shoot a good chunk of the movie there. Personal issues lead to the exit of director Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan, Requiem From A Dream) and James Mangold (Walk The Line, 3:10 To Yuma) stepped in. The film's script written by Christopher McQuarrie (Usual Suspects) ended up getting rewrites from Mark Bomback (Total Recall, Die Hard 4, Jack The Giant Killer). Again the film's expected Spring 2012 shoot was put into question when Hugh Jackman signed onto Tom Hooper's Les Miserables which is about to start production. It was confirmed that we'll be seeing characters like Silver Samurai, Viper, Yukio and The Hand.
Deadpool hasn't had as many issues as The Wolverine but still did have some during it's development. It's script written by the duo Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese who brought us the successful zombie comedy Zombieland ended up leaking online, revealing it's characters. Those included at the time of the leak Blind Al, Patch, Copycat, Ajax (villain) and X-Men member Colossus. While Fox seemed to freak out about the script being all over the web everyone who ended up reading it loved it. It will be interesting to see how many changes if any will end up in the final film.
Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez had been named as dream directors for the project. While Rodriguez took a look at the script and had talks with Fox he ended up making Spy Kids 4 instead. VFX expert Tim Miller ended up landing the directing job which seemed to confuse a lot of people unfamiliar with his work. He owns and works for VFX company Blur Studios making some of the best cinematic trailers for video games. Miller was involved in the effects departments for both X-Men and X2. It's expected that Blur will end up doing the Deadpool's effects. They've previously worked on films like Scott Pilgrim, Avatar and The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.
Ryan Reynolds had been eager to play Deadpool for years and was cast as Wade Wilson in X-Men Origins:Wolverine. The film was a total mess angering Deadpool fans who felt the studio ruined the on screen character. Ryan went on the defensive and the studio looked to push for a spin-off in the meantime. Even if Reynolds had been clamoring his constant involvement in giving fans a faithful Deadpool film it was questionable if he was going to stick around. During Green Lantern's production a trilogy had been brought up and it looked like Ryan could exiting Deadpool. Luckily for Fox, Green Lantern tanked and WB's rushed sequel didn't look like it was going to happen anytime soon. It's been confirmed yet again that Ryan is still attached to the project and is just waiting for the production date.
Deadpool creator Rob Liefeld recently confirmed that the studio has shot around eight minutes of hard-R test footage which he's been able to preview. It seems that pre-production is currently about to start and they're just waiting for a greenlight from both Fox and producer Lauren Shuler Donner. Donner confirmed not too long ago she would be pushing the studio to go with the R rating.
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