Ryan Reynolds hyping the upcoming Deadpool comic is not only good for brand synergy but also a welcome sight coming from a major player in an industry that often shies away from properly crediting its source material and creators. Time and time again, writers and artists who have created, inspired, or are directly responsible for the stories superhero films are based on are largely ignored and not fairly compensated for billion-dollar franchises that wouldn’t exist without their work.
Marvel Studios has notoriously made significant mistakes when it comes to crediting comic pros, such as legendary “New Mutants” co-creator Bob McLeod’s name being spelled wrong in the credits of “New Mutants.” Even worse, the studio has regularly low-balled creators, offering a reported flat rate of $5,000 for using comic book plot points and characters in movies. It’s why Thanos creator Jim Starlin revealed Warner Bros. paid him significantly more for using Anatoli Knyazev, aka KGBeast, a barely seen villain who doesn’t even appear in costume in “Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice,” than Marvel shelled out for Thanos, the MCU’s biggest villain. Starlin has also publicly commended DC Comics for properly crediting writers and artists, saying he “Wish[es] the Marvel movies would do the same.”
But we may be on the cusp of a shift regarding proper credit being given and celebrating the movies’ source material. James Gunn, the new head of the DCU, consistently props up comic books while also including comic writers in his films’ creative process, the most recent being “Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow” scribe Tom King. Despite crediting creatives seeming like the bare minimum a significant studio could do, many haven’t put much, if any, consideration into doing so.
Deadpool and Wolverine are going to war, and Ryan Reynolds wants you to know all about it – even though the battle isn’t taking place in “Deadpool 3.” Read More