'Guardians of the Galaxy' Director Predicts Studios Will Miss the Point of 'Deadpool' Success
‘Deadpool’ (Twentieth Century Fox)
By Graeme McMillan
James Gunn has responded to the success of Fox’s Deadpool, warning that studios might be about to take the wrong lessons from the success of the R-rated superhero comedy.
Gunn took to Facebook to share his thoughts on what Deadpool’s massive first weekend might mean for the superhero movie genre’s future.
“After every movie smashes records people here in Hollywood love to throw out the definitive reasons why the movie was a hit,” he wrote. “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.“
That wasn’t his response to Deadpool, he quickly added. Instead, he argued, that movie "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.”
In the wake of the record-breaking opening weekend for Deadpool, Gunn predicts, “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.”
It’s not all doom and gloom, however; Gunn added that “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.’” Whichever studio does that, he suggests, is “who is going to succeed.”
Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 is currently in preproduction ahead of its May 5, 2017 release.
Related: 'Deadpool’: A Breakdown of Its Box-Office Records
Watch our interview with Deadpool himself:
