“Guardians of the Galaxy” director James Gunn knows exactly why Ryan Reynolds‘ “Deadpool” was a smash at the box office this weekend, but he fears that because of its success, Hollywood will create movies “like ‘Deadpool’” as opposed to original content.
“Over the next few months, if you pay attention to the trades, you’ll see Hollywood misunderstanding the lesson they should be learning with ‘Deadpool,’” Gunn posted on Facebook. “They’ll be green lighting films ‘like ‘Deadpool’ — but, by that, they won’t mean ‘good and original’ but ‘a raunchy superhero film’ or ‘it breaks the fourth wall.’ They’ll treat you like you’re stupid, which is the one thing ‘Deadpool’ didn’t do.”
He added, “But hopefully in the midst of all this there will be a studio or two that will take the right lesson from this — like Fox did with ‘Guardians’ by green-lighting ‘Deadpool’ — and say, ‘Boy, maybe we can give them something they don’t already have.’ And that’s who is going to succeed.’”
Gunn’s fear stems from observations he made following “Guardians of the Galaxy,” which came out in 2014 and grossed $333 million domestically. Gunn said that due to the movie’s success, he started seeing “dozens of trailers exactly like the Guardians trailer with a big pop song and a bunch of quips.”
“After every movie smashes records people here in Hollywood love to throw out the definitive reasons why the movie was a hit,” he said. “I saw it happen with ‘Guardians.’ It ‘wasn’t afraid to be fun’ or it ‘was colorful and funny’ etc etc etc. And next thing I know I hear of a hundred film projects being set up ‘like Guardians,’ and I start seeing dozens of trailers exactly like the ‘Guardians’ trailer with a big pop song and a bunch of quips. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.”
The reason people reacted to “Deadpool” so positively, he said, is because it was original. “It’s damn good, it was made with love by the filmmakers, and it wasn’t afraid to take risks,” Gunn said.
Therefore, the director is calling for originality in Hollywood, for films to be unique and not just copy “what came before them.”
See his Facebook post below.
"The film has a self-deprecating tone that's riotous. It's never been done before. It's poking fun at Marvel. That label... Posted by James Gunn on Monday, February 15, 2016