Donald Glover developed an animated Deadpool series for FX, and I still haven’t forgiven Marvel for canceling it before airing a single episode. Glover is perfectly suited to a Deadpool show; he cut his teeth on Community, which helped pave the way for this kind of self-aware humor, and he successfully mixed genres, upended tropes, and kept his audience on their toes in Atlanta.
Cartoons are a great medium for both meta comedy and deeper social satire, as we’ve seen in The Simpsons and South Park. Animation is a boundless art form with limitless visual possibilities, as we’ve seen in Big Mouth and BoJack Horseman. You can subvert the usual expectations of a conventional narrative, as we’ve seen with the loosey-goosey continuity of Family Guy.
The character of Deadpool is tailor-made for an adult animated series. So, it’s a crying shame that a Deadpool project in the perfect medium with the perfect creator was scrapped before airing so much as a pilot.
Marvel Reportedly Pulled The Plug On Donald Glover’s Deadpool Show
During FX’s short-lived partnership with Marvel Television, a 10-episode series order was given to a Deadpool cartoon that didn’t yet have a script, or even a writer to write it. FX offered it to Glover and his brother Stephen, with whom they’d developed a strong working relationship on Atlanta, and they signed on to write, executive-produce, and showrun the series.
But in March 2018, FX announced that it would not be moving forward with the series (via Deadline), vaguely citing creative differences as the reason for the split. FX released a statement adding that all three parties involved in the series — FX, Marvel Television, and the Glovers — had mutually decided to “part ways.” It was very diplomatic.
In 2019, FX CEO John Landgraf revealed that “Deadpool didn’t work out because Marvel didn’t want to make it. It didn’t fit what they wanted to do with Deadpool and it’s their brand and their decision.”
Donald Glover’s Deadpool Would’ve Been The Second Marvel Show On FX
In this statement, FX clarified that its partnership with Marvel Television would continue through their other Marvel show, Legion. A Deadpool show could’ve led to all kinds of Marvel shows on FX, but as it stands, Legion is still the only Marvel show made for FX (that made it to air, anyway).
Although Noah Hawley has gotten a lot of praise for his reimaginings of Fargo and Alien, he doesn’t get enough credit for giving us one of the best X-Men shows ever made, Legion. Legion is uncharacteristically dark and disturbing for a Marvel show. It’s not beholden to the house style of the MCU; it’s a twisted odyssey.
Legion ended after three seasons in 2019, around the time that the lengthy proceedings began for Disney to acquire 21st Century Fox. This allowed them to fold Marvel Television into Marvel Studios, which would start developing TV shows for Disney+, making the FX deal essentially moot. Disney could’ve revived Glover’s Deadpool series and gotten it on FX’s airwaves after all, but it’s pretty obvious why they didn’t.
FX’s Deadpool Show Would’ve “Given Rick & Morty A Run For Their Money”
Stephen Glover spoke out after the cancelation of the series (via TheWrap) and confirmed that Marvel disapproved of their portrayal of the Deadpool character, and that an episode involving Taylor Swift was “the last straw.” Marvel has complete control over how its characters are depicted on-screen, and they wouldn’t allow the Glovers’ vision of Deadpool to see the light of day.
Glover said, “We definitely wanted to give Rick and Morty a run for their money, and I think we would have.” Pushing Rick and Morty’s boundaries of vulgarity and shock humor doesn’t sound like the most marketable superhero show, but it does sound about right for a Deadpool show.
Glover Gave Us A Taste Of His Deadpool After The Show Was Axed
Within a week of FX announcing that it wasn’t moving forward with Deadpool: The Animated Series, Donald Glover posted a 15-page script entitled “Finale” on his Twitter account (via The Hollywood Reporter). In the script, Deadpool travels to Kenya to protect the rhinoceros Sudan, who had died a few days earlier, and pontificates on why the series was canceled. The post was deleted shortly thereafter.
In “Finale,” Deadpool goes over the material that was written for the series and contemplates which aspects of the writing Marvel specifically disapproved of. He mentions a risqué joke about Marvel “trying to sell toys to seven-year-old boys and 50-year-old pedophiles.” He considers the sociopolitical implications of showing a “violent, gun-loving white man ranting on TV” in 2018.
He suggests that Marvel may have objected to the all-Black writing staff including references to Black culture in the scripts. “Finale” includes a really poignant quote that pretty much sums up the problem with the industry at large right now: “It just feels like everyone wants something different, but no one wants to do anything different to get it.”
This “Finale” script gives us a taste of what the comedic voice of Glover’s Deadpool series would’ve been, and just based on that 15-page farewell, it sounds pitch-perfect: biting satirical wit, close-to-the-bone one-liners, and meta layers upon meta layers. Disney has already let Glover down with its handling of young Lando Calrissian; if they revive his Deadpool series, it might make up for it.
Source: Deadline, TheWrap, The Hollywood Reporter
