Ryan Reynolds, who stars in the upcoming adaptation of Dark Horse’s RIPD, sounds a bit exasperated with the on-again, off-again progress of the film that Fox has been developing based on Marvel’s Deadpool.  The movie has a script from Zombieland scribes Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick as well as a director (Tim Miller) attached (see "Deadpool Movie Gets Writers"), but Fox has been reluctant to give the green light to the "R" rated comic book-based film.
 
Reynolds told Total Film, "The movie is alive and kicking, and then it’s dead as a doornail.  Then it’s alive and kicking, and then it’s dead.  It’s like the worst relationship I’ve ever had."  In addition to the studio’s presumed reluctance to take a risk on an "R" rated superhero film, it appears that the wisecracking “merc with a mouth” might be, at least in the current script, a rather radical departure from current superhero film norms thanks to a protagonist who is aware that he is in a movie and who would likely be a threat to break the fourth wall at any moment.
 
As Reynolds puts it, "The character knows he’s a comic-book character.  He knows he’s in a film, he knows who the executives are who are making the movie.  In the current iteration of the script Deadpool is aware of the Wolverine movie.  He doesn’t say anything disparaging about it, but he does at one point play with a Deadpool action figure with some curiosity."
 
Will Fox man up and make a film from this self-referential script, which mirrors Deadpool/Wade Wilson’s anarchic comic book character?  Perhaps if Reynolds manages to make RIPD a hit and the studio’s Wolverine reboot also does well--though neither film is a surefire hit given the extremely competitive nature of this summer’s movie season.