Surprisingly,
Deadpool's $783.1 million box office return on a $58 million production budget hasn't led to a development rush for the likes of
Lobo,
Plastic Man or
Squirrel Girl. While there is a
Harley Quinn-led Birds of Prey movie in development and an R-rated
Hellboy reboot in the works, the response from competing studios has been fairly quiet- almost as if they're all waiting to find out if the first film was lightning in a bottle or the sequel proves just as popular.
In
Variety's profile of WB's newly appointed Chief Content Officer, Toby Emmerich was asked specifically if there were any plans to replicate what Fox is doing with
Deadpool or Hugh Jackman's
Wolverine swan song,
Logan.
"
I would be surprised if we didn’t at some point make an R-rated DC movie," stated Emmerich. Variety added that Emmerich told them that he "
admired the violent, irreverent and adult comic-book" themes that personify both of those movies.
A low-budget,
John Wick style action thriller for
Katana (played by Karen Fukuhara) certainly makes a lot of sense to comic book fans but is that something the larger audience would show up for?
Part of Fox's success with their recent R-rated superhero films is that they had the right characters (Deadpool and Wolverine) and he perfect actors (Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman) playing them. Finding the right mix of acting talent and character intangibles is what separates a non family-friendly superhero movie from becoming a franchise or a tax write-off.