While Fox has been developing a movie version of Deadpool ever since the character was introduced in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, it’s slightly been put on the back burner as Fox concentrates on X-Men: First Class and Wolverine 2 (not to mention the fact star Ryan Reynolds is busy making Green Lantern). However back in January, Zombieland’s Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick were hired to come up with a screenplay, but there’s been little word on a director.
However, while he hasn’t officially signed on, according to Production Weekly, via The Playlist, Robert Rodriquez has been offered the job. Whether he’ll take it is another matter. Rodriguez is well known for only wanting to take on films that he has almost complete control over, and it’s difficult to see Fox ceding much autonomy to Rodriguez on an X-Men related project, no matter how happy they are with his work as producer of Predators and director of Machete.
The director has already turned down an offer to helm Fox’s Planet Of The Apes prequel, and well well pass on this too. The fact is though, with a property that’s as jealously guarded by fans as Deadpool, any director is going to get pilloried for a film version, especially after the reaction to the changes made to the character in Wolverine. We’d imagine Rodriguez will want to keep doing his own thing, rather than taking on a project like this.