Deadpool Movie Screenwriter Launches Campaign To Get Film Made

Following a new surge in popularity and interest, Deadpool film writer Rhett Reese is mounting a Twitter campaign to help get the film made.

The plan seems to be to make Fox acutely aware of how much money they’re leaving on the table by not making a Deadpool movie. Reese is encouraging his followers to “break the Internet” by retweeting his initial Tweet (see below) if they would spend money on a movie ticket to see Deadpool.

A Deadpool film has been in various stages of planning for about a decade now, beginning in 2004, when New Line Cinema and David S. Goyer (who would go on to write The Dark Knight) were said to be working on the project, with Ryan Reynolds set to star. Eventually, Goyer and New Line moved on from the project, but Reynolds was still interested in the role. 20th Century Fox became interested in making a Deadpool movie, and so they got Reynolds to play the character in 2009’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine, hoping it would lead to a spinoff.

X-Men: Origins Wolverine did well enough to warrant a spinoff, but fans were not pleased with the film’s depiction of Deadpool, having taken away the mouth of the “Merc with a Mouth.” Lauren Shuler Donner took over production of the film at that point, and was said to be working to create a film that completely ignored Deadpool’s X-Men Origins appearance and stayed more true to his comic book personality.

Reese and Paul Wernick co-wrote a script for the film in 2010, but production of the film stalled.

Interest in the film was renewed when test footage was leaked onto the internet, prompting effects company Blur Studios to release the test footage in an official capacity. Fan response to the test footage was largely positive, and it seems Rhett wants to use that wave of positive energy to get Fox to move forward with the project in a tangible way.