Is Deadpool finally heading to the big screen?!

In the middle of all the Comic-Con related madness, something glorious happened. Test footage created years ago by Tim Miller showcasing the fan-favourite merc with a mouth Deadpool hit the internet! The footage was a short two minute clip featuring Ryan Reynolds reprising his role from 'X-Men Origins: Wolverine' with a more faithful adaptation of the character this time, and featured Deadpool almost instantly breaking the fourth wall to have banter with the audience before leaping into battle against generic henchmen. The first time the footage leaked, I decided to not blog about it. The quality was rather low, and the fact that someone leaked it about three years after its creation connoted to me that studio interest in the project was so lacking that an employee managed to leak the footage. But then the footage got leaked again today. In HD. And now I'm thinking I was completely wrong. I'm actually starting to believe that the leaking of this footage could be the closest we've come to Deadpool's very on standalone.

Deadpool as he appeared in the footage.

Okay, so let's look at some of the facts first. Fox had nothing relating to X-Men or Fantastic Four at Comic-Con. Understandably so for the X-Men franchise, given that the next installment isn't until 2016, but less understandable for Fantastic Four given that the film is less than a year away and will probably need to work to get a positive attitude from the general audience after the 2005 and 2007 installments from Tim Story. But does this mean Fox were idly sitting back playing with their thumbs while Disney and Warner Bros won over audiences? I'm actually starting to think that the entire reason Deadpool footage leaked during Comic-Con was to ride the hype of all the fans frantically searching online for all the news so that they could gauge fan reactions to the footage (which are mostly positive from what I hear). The idea of a HD leak coming a day or so after a low-res leak certainly seems to hint to some studio involvement in the footage getting released. And after the mega success of 'X-Men: Days of Future Past', along with the hype of audience relating to 'Guardians of the Galaxy', a similarly abstract and lesser known franchise, could have convinced Fox into reigniting their interest in the Deadpool movie. After all, in October 2013, the director of the project, Tim Miller confirmed in an interview that the film is actually ready to go and the hold-up on the project is just Miller and Reynolds waiting for the green light from Fox. So imagine if you were in charge of handling 20th Century Fox's Marvel projects. You want to expand your superhero cinematic universe, your latest film in the universe was the highest grossing yet, lesser known properties are actually now getting huge reactions from the audience, and you have a film ready to go centered around a character adored by fans. You'd be crazy to not at least consider giving Deadpool the go ahead, right?

The footage stays true to the comedy of the character.

One of the biggest drawbacks fans speculate is holding Deadpool back from getting greenlit however is actually the nature of the characters himself. Fans of the character know very well how gory Deadpool can get in the comic, as well as rather inappropriate humour for the younger audiences of typical comic book movies. But the funny thing is about this "huge drawback" is that we might have the answer to exactly how Fox plans on getting past that right in front of us. One idea is that Fox simply dial Deadpool back and make a PG-13 film. Before seeing the footage, I'd call this hearsay! But after actually seeing the footage, they do a spectacular job of bringing Deadpool to life without really crossing the line into R territory. There's one decapitation, nothing that hasn't been seen before in films aimed towards a teenage audience like Star Wars or The Hobbit, and that's as far as the gore goes. There's an expletive right at the end as Deadpool says "Oh, fuck me!" when the title appears, but nothing that you couldn't squeeze into a PG-13 film ("Fuck" was actually used by Wolverine in both 'X-Men: First Class' and 'The Wolverine', and then later by Charles Xavier in 'Days of Future Past'). So that's one option. The second option would be of course to just go all out and make the R-Rated Deadpool movie fans demand. Of course this would mean having to minimize the budget giving that you lose a large potential audience, but perhaps if the film is done in a similar motion capture way as the test footage, you could actually have all the zany stunts you'd expect from the character without having to go overboard with the budget. I think one of the biggest worries Fox will have about an R-Rated film, though, would be the major under performance of recent R Rated superhero flicks, namely 'Dredd'. It's not like the concept can't work and still make a good return though. All three Blade films were both R-Rated and financially successful. 2009's 'Watchmen' also turned a decent profit. There is however a third potential option. Theatrically releasing a barebones PG-13 version of the film that could still get the profit from the teenage audience, and then releasing the more hardcore R rated version when the home video releases of the film come later. It's not a concept completely alien to Fox, last year's 'The Wolverine' had the exact same treatment, but it's perhaps a tricky one to pull off without making it seem like the theatrical version is a half hearted version, and it could maybe even damage the film financially if fans decide to hold off until home video to see the version they prefer, but it could be a way to make the studio feel safer about going ahead with the film while also staying true to the character.

So all in all, while we may not have any confirmation from Fox whatsoever that they're even looking at a 'Deadpool' solo film once more, I think all the signs are pretty clear that they are considering it, and the character is currently in the best position to be greenlit that he's ever been. I decided against including a link to the HD release of the footage, because it's likely by the time anyone read this blog the link would be dead, but a simple Google search for "Deadpool leaked footage" shows dozens of enthusiastic fans sharing the footage and hoping we see a full feature. So instead I'll leave you with this, which yes, does actually appear as the theme in the test footage.

So have you seen the footage? What are your thoughts on it and the idea of a full feature film like it? Would you want it PG-13 or R? Live action or mo-cap? Whatever your thoughts, share them in the comments below!

Wonder Woman Unveiled!

DC hit Hall H earlier this day at Comic-Con offering a look at 'Jupiter Ascending', 'Mad Max' and 'The Hobbit', but "surprised" audiences when they also showed off a sneak peak at the upcoming and highly anticipated 'Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice', due to hit cinemas early 2016. Apparently the audience were treated to some early footage of the film, as well as the unveiling of actress Gal Gadot's costume for her role as the popular superhero Wonder Woman! This is following earlier reveals this year of both Batman and Superman's costumes for the film. 

Gadot as the iconic Wonder Woman

My first initial reaction to this image was how faithful the armour is the iconic Wonder Woman look. It has all the features one would expect to see in a Wonder Woman incarnation from the 'WW' belt symbol to the bird on the chest. I was hoping to see Wonder Woman wearing pants on screen but I suppose a skirt is better than nothing. Although there's one glaring aspect to the Wonder Woman costume that seems less faithful to the comic books: the colouring. If you take an extremely close look at her armour, it seems like it may have a very toned down tint of red in it, and while the skirt indeed looks black it might be a very dark shade of blue. Regardless, I am slightly disappointed that we can't see a bit more brightness to her costume. It's almost as if DC, while making a film about a superpowered alien battling an orphan who dresses up like a bat, are convinced that bright colours on the costumes will be where the audience draw the line and say that's the thing that's unrealistic about this whole scenario. I can't say I'm surprised to see DC tone down the vividness of the characters, but I also can't pretend to be happy about it either, especially while their rivals are making billions from movies with vivid and comicbooky characters like Captain America, and in a week will happily release a movie starring a raccoon with a gun, while DC are only now bringing their third biggest character to the screen.

Another pleasant surprise from this image is how good Gal Gadot looks in this costume. And I don't mean attractive (as much as she is), but rather that she looks like she belongs in it. As much as I doubted Gadot could pull off this iconic role, I gotta admit she actually looks pretty fucking badass in her suit there! Now, of course, this is a still image, so while she may look the part here, she may still completely screw up all the acting of the character, but this image has given me more hope that she will provide us with the incarnation of Wonder Woman we truly deserve after all these years of waiting.

There's not a lot else to say really about DC's panel; Wonder Woman was definitely their big hitter. But before I leave you I will touch upon one subject. Description of the footage, while stating it's no more than a stare off between Bats and Supes, did describe that we'd see Affleck don an armour not unlike the one used in the classic graphic novel 'The Dark Knight Returns' that features white lights for eyes, giving him a classic comic look. Now granted, this won't be the first time we have seen something like this. Christian Bale's Batman uses sonic vision at the end of 'The Dark Knight' to find the Joker that give his eyes the same white out effect (spoiler, I guess, if you haven't seen one of the most popular superhero films ever six years after it's release yet care enough about superheroes to read some guy's thoughts on a costume). Apparently, this image has leaked from the teaser they showed, and while I cannot confirm that it is genuine, if it is, it looks fucking awesome.

I can't wait to here about more from this film. I've had my worries and doubts, but today has really reassured me that DC know what they're doing finally when it comes to putting some of their most iconic characters onto the big screen for the first time, and it sounds like they know exactly what they're doing with the face-off between Batman and Superman. What do you guys think of the Wonder Woman costume? Perfect? Too dark and gritty? Not dark and gritty enough? Sound off in the comments! And for more on my thoughts from comic-con, check back to the blog later today! Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice hits cinemas 29th April 2016 in the UK (a week before USA's 6th May date).

EDIT!: That Batman screenshot I included at the end? Leaked footage online proves it's completely real, and we can indeed expect Affleck's Batman to have similar armour in the film!

How the 'Destiny' Beta turned me into a believer

'Destiny' has been a game that everyone has known about for a while, and pretty much everyone has been on board with as a staple of what next-gen gaming could be. And when I say pretty much everyone, I really mean what seems like everyone but me. The majority of the time since the announcement of the PlayStation 4, everytime we see a conference relating to next-gen, we see Destiny back on the stage showing off more content. So much so, in fact, that by the time E3 rolled around this year, I was fatigued by the game months before it ever came out. I remember letting out a sigh when they inevitably hit the stage again this year showing off new content from the game. Very much like Ubisoft did with 'Watch_Dogs', I felt as though Bungie were pushing their product onto me too much and actually turning me off from the idea of purchasing it. However, unlike 'Watch_Dogs', it seemed like I was alone with this sentiment. They never showed me anything that got me excited. After a while, we finally got to see some gameplay, and I was still unimpressed! I just kept getting the vibe I was watching a more serious take on 'Borderlands' set in a 'Halo'-esque world. Very little to keep me interested. But then, this weekend, the Beta opened to the public (giving that you owned a PS4 or Xbox One and had PS Plus / Xbox Live Gold). And everything changed.

Destiny always looked beautiful, but lacked something to keep me interested.

As soon as the beta started, I found myself surprised by how much I enjoyed the customization in the game. Assuming the complete game will be much more expansive, the Beta currently offers the choice of three races, gender, and the ability to customize the face (albeit currently limited). The opening cinematic featuring explorers on Mars hooked me more than anything Bungie have shown at conferences with stunning graphics, but most importantly, it had a great tone to it, reminiscent of classic science fiction TV shows such as Star Trek. This was particularly helped by a great score, really setting the mood of this world that Bungie have obviously poured so much effort into constructing. Gameplay wise, the game is completely tight. I felt that no elements of the gameplay were lacking, but on the other hand none were unique enough to praise the game for being inventive. It's a standard shooter with RPG elements like we've seen dozens of times with games like 'Borderlands' and 'Fallout'. The real appeal to the game lies with the feel and aesthetics of the world Bungie have created. Peter Dinklage voices your robotic companion in the game, and does a decent job of it too, but it's not a particular stand out performance. 

The beta includes a handful of story based missions, all of which I enjoyed playing thoroughly, both due to the fun, tight gameplay and the promise of evolving my character and upgrading him to meet my demands; standard RPG stuff. Quite obviously, Bungie doesn't include too much in the Beta such as otherworldly exploration or a lot of the story beyond an initial set up. It does also include a multiplayer mode, which again was rather bog standard and something we've seen a thousand times before with players capturing points on the map. As someone who rarely finds myself getting involved with multiplayer unless it promises something unique (Assassin's Creed or Last of Us come to mind), it was disappointing that Bungie had fail to capture my interest with Destiny's multiplayer mode and instead just spewing out the standard we have come to expect with all games. One interesting aspect of multiplayer, however, was that when I was playing single player story missions, I'd find three or four other players playing through the mission too while I was. While the Beta just threw me in with random players, it stands to reason the full game could have you blast through missions with a few pals online, which sounds like an interesting concept. Much more interesting than the samey competitive multiplayer. The idea of being thrown in with random players wasn't as hectic as I thought it would be either. Most players stuck to themselves and I rarely saw them if I wanted to do my own thing. There were sections of the missions where you'd enter a darkzone, meaning you'd play through it with no other players, and if you died you wouldn't instantly respawn without losing progress, instead going back to the beginning of the zone, which seems like a fair way to make sure the cooperative system doesn't make boss fights too easy. One problem I did have, though, was because of the games online nature, I couldn't pause the game. Rather, when I pressed the 'Options' button which I assumed would pause the game during a boss battle so I could do something else quickly, the boss continued to beat on me while I was away and killed me. I don't know if this is something that will be fixed in the full game, but it seems like a pretty big flaw in the system. Luckily though, the story missions all seemed short and sweet enough that if you got stuck in the middle of one when you suddenly needed to do something else, it wouldn't take you long at all to either finish the level or get back to where you were. 

All in all, Destiny's beta surprised me, and I completely swayed from being not interested at all to highly anticipating the game. I still have my concerns about the competitive multiplayer and whether the online aspects will continue to work in the story missions, but I'll be purchasing it on day one to find out the answers myself. But what did you guys think of Destiny? Did you play the Beta and enjoy it, or have you made your decision through gameplay videos? Drop me a comment and let me know! For more on Destiny when it launches, check back to the blog!