Fanboys can rejoice today: Fox has announced that Deadpool will at last be a movie. Plans have been in the works for years on an X-Men spinoff about Deadpool—the masked mercenary whose powers include the ability to heal himself, a magic bag, and a smart-assed wit, developed as a healing defense mechanism against people making fun of his “magic bag”—beginning when Ryan Reynolds played him in 2009’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine. But the project stalled. Then, a while back some test footage was leaked online, and the Internet went to work demanding that the movie get made.
Variety is reporting that the film will hit theaters in February 2016. Reynolds has hinted that it was the online reaction that might have been the deciding factor for the movie. “There was such an overpowering reaction to the footage, you sort of feel like, ‘Oh, so we weren’t crazy for our reasons for loving this character, for loving this role.’ It’s interesting to see the power of the Internet. It’s awe-inspiring, actually. And it’s neat that Twitter and Facebook and Instagram can move mountains when used in the right way.” I’m not sure if getting a comic-book movie made qualifies as moving mountains, but if all it needs to happen is a few Tweets, then the Dredd sequel campaign needs to step up its game. Oh, wait, it just did.
