How Terrible 'Deadpool' and 'Wonder Woman' Pitches Led to a Fan-Favorite Gail Simone Story

All great ideas start somewhere, and in Gail Simone's case, that happened to be terrible movie [...]

All great ideas start somewhere, and in Gail Simone's case, that happened to be terrible movie pitches.

Simone was recently told by a fan how much they loved the Queen of Fables story during her Wonder Woman run. The story deals with the premise of Diana dealing with the production of an actual Wonder Woman movie, and Simone revealed that actual movie pitches, most of which were bad, inspired the storyline.

"HA! Okay, there's a story behind that," Simone said. "The truth is, I had been asked MANY TIMES by producers what I would do if I wrote a Wonder Woman movie. And I would have these meetings and phone calls, and finally, I realized that I genuinely HATED all the ideas these people had to make WW movies. They were always just like Diana herself was an afterthought. ALWAYS battle of the sexes stories. So boring! So I read several treatments and a couple spec scripts and I didn't like any of them. So I despaired of a good WW film ever being made. And I thought it's better if they don't do it than do it so badly."

That same issue also surfaced with another fan favorite, that being the merc with a mouth Deadpool.

"I would get similar meetings and phone calls asking what I would do with a Deadpool film. I finally asked a pro friend and he asked what they were paying me for my thoughts. It had never occurred to me to charge. And HE said that they must not know what to do and so they were hoping I would have some magic key that might help them or something, which seems weird to me even now because I forget to close a window in the rain."

The good news is that both characters ended up hitting the big screen with immense success, and Simone couldn't be happier about that.

"But the point of the story is still completely valid. It is better to wait for a GREAT movie than to settle for crap. And I don't know if we truly understand how fortunate we are that the Deadpool and Wonder Woman films finally did end up in the perfect, dedicated hands. Because some of the pitches were AWFUL."

Fans can watch both Deadpool and Wonder Woman on digital platforms, Blu-ray, and DVD now. Wonder Woman #24 and #25 (2008) are also available now.

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