It seems like superhero crossover films are all anybody is wanting to do these days. Go big or go home is the attitude. Marvel has been doing this for years, and Warner Brothers recently got into the mix with their Batman/Superman movie. So why should things be any different over at 20th Century Fox? They see the money that can be made, and they want a part of it. Of course, they kind of started the whole "multiple heroes in the same movie" fad that's going on right now when they introduced us to the X-Men. The problem is, they haven't built off of the X-Men properly. Yes, they've given us stand alone Wolverine movies, but even the first one of these movies was a flop and ticked off a lot of fans of the comics by screwing up Wade Wilson. If it wasn't for Ryan Reynolds and the writers of Deadpool (Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick) pushing Fox to redeem themselves for the mess they made of Deadpool in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Fox would still be sitting on this property not knowing what to do with it. Now that Deadpool is a HUGE success, there's now talk of trying to figure out how to do a crossover film with the X-Men and Deadpool. I think Deadpool's "Oh no!" expression in the picture above describes my feelings about this idea quite well.
A lot of people out there are fans of Bryan Singer's X-Men movies...I'm not one of them. Yes, I love the X-Men. They were some of the very first comic books that I ever bought as a kid, but Singer's interpretation of the comic book that he's given us in theaters is lacking, in my opinion. I know I'll get crap for saying that, but that's how I feel about it. the first X-Men film wasn't bad, I really liked it, but the second one just didn't seem to work. He was trying to throw in too many characters and storylines that, in my opinion, he wasn't very familiar with. The third movie sucked, but he had nothing to do with that one, and I'll credit him for walking away from that one. X-Men: First Class revitalized the franchise, but again, he had nothing to do with that one either. Singer came back for X-Men: Days of Future Past, and even though the story was pretty good, I don't think he did a very good job of handling all of the characters from the future and the past very well. Now his X-Men: Apocalypse is due to come out this month, and the reviews are mixed, with critics leaning toward the side of "not his best work." Color me surprised. But even with these mixed reviews, that hasn't stopped Singer and 20th Century Fox from thinking about the future.
As Singer is going around doing interviews to promote Apocalypse, questions about Deadpool joining the X-Men cinematic universe have been popping up all over the place. I'm sure that this has been irritating for Singer, considering that Deadpool has out-grossed all of his X-Men movies he's made, but he seems to be gracious about the whole thing, even answering questions about a possible cross over with the Merc with a Mouth. Here's what he had to say:
“If you take a character as irreverent and meta as Deadpool and connect him to something as grounded and serious as X-Men, you have to do it carefully and gently. When you drop them all in together it can be a disaster. That has to be done delicately, but there’s plenty of room to do it.”
First of all, I'd like to commend him for realizing and understanding that the two different movie tones might not work well together. What I'm worried about, however, is that he thinks it could be done. This would be the worst possible thing for a brand new franchise like Deadpool to do. He has the potential to go on to make plenty of movies as a stand alone character (with another character to play off of like Colossus or Cable) and doesn't need to join a "team." I know he has in comic books, but this is different. A lot different. Deadpool interacting with the audience, or "breaking the fourth wall," helped this movie be a hit. To try and mix that flavor with a moody X-Men movie is a recipe for disaster, and unfortunately, Fox doesn't seem to realize this.
So to finish this rant, I'll just say this...if you think this will help you score big at the box office with a crossover, then go ahead and try it, but know that you'll be killing off your most profitable movie franchise that you own.
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