Deadpool

With the success of both Deadpool and Logan, 20th Century Fox has found a way to effectively differentiate itself from the other members of the superhero studio trifecta. Disney releases superhero films with broad appeal and a bright aesthetic; 20th Century Fox aims for more mature themes and isn’t afraid to incorporate both violence and profanity into its projects; Warner Bros…. well, they’re working on this, and when they figure out, it’s gonna be yuuuge. You’ll see.

Isn’t it just like Ryan Reynolds to upstage a colleague? After listening to critics sing the praises of Logan for the past few weeks, fans around the country took their seats on Friday night ready to watch Hugh Jackman strap on his metal claws one last time. And so it came as quite a surprise when the first superhero to appear onscreen wasn’t Wolverine but Deadpool, everyone’s favorite violent and profane superhero — and, if we’re being honest with each other, the entire reason an R-rated Wolverine movie was greenlit by 20th Century Fox.

In the superhero movie business, ratings have until now seemed like a pretty simple business. The way to get the biggest audience while also keeping in as much fantasy violence and perilous situations to stay true to the comics was to shoot for the middle ground, a nice, nonthreatening PG-13. No full-on nudity, no blood splatter, and relegate your one allocated f-word to Wolverine. But the times, they are a-changin’, and superhero movies are changing right along with them, starting with shooting for the more mature, edgier R-rating. As it turns out, this is exactly the direction audiences want them to go.

Few superhero movies captured the imagination of audiences last year quite like Deadpool. While Marvel releases were praised for their sleek storytelling and progressive characters, Deadpool went the other route, earning hundreds of millions of dollars on the strength of its raunchy sex scenes and immature sight gags. It was choppy, it was unpolished, and, occasionally, it was noticeably cheap around the edges. In other words, it was everything that Marvel movies are not.

An “October surprise” refers to a major revelation deliberately timed to influence the outcome of a Presidential election. The Oscars, then, regularly offer a January surprise, in which a contender comes out of nowhere to elbow their way into the awards conversation. This year’s big shock is permanently smirking superhero send-up Deadpool, which has already upended plenty of predictions by racking up nominations among various industry guild groups. Superhero movies have never been able to crack the Best Picture race, but perhaps the self-reflexive meta streak in Deadpool could give it the edge it needs to sneak into the category. The nominations will be announced one week from today, and who’ll end up at the big dance is anyone’s guess.

It’s been a topsy-turvy week for awards prognosticators, relative even to the usual topsy-turviness of an industry based entirely on guesswork and speculation. Deadpool frightened and confused Oscar oddsmakers when it unexpectedly snatched up a Best Picture nomination from the Producers Guild Awards program on Tuesday, and then officially rejiggered everyone’s slate of predictions when director Tim Miller earned a nomination from the Directors Guild of America. What had been all but forgotten as a superhero oddball is staging a late-phase charge among the groups of professionals that vote for Oscar nominees — nothing is out of the question.

Depending on who you ask, Deadpool might qualify as a hero or a villain, but there's no denying he's racked up a long list of people who wouldn't mind a shot at him. With so many people gunning for the Merc With A Mouth, the field is wide open this week as we ask you to vote for the best Deadpool enemy.

Deadpool. Mercenary. Superhero. Weapon X survivor. And Writer’s Guild of America nominee for Best Adapted freaking Screenplay.

When is a superhero movie like Game of Thrones? When it’s the most pirated movie of the year, of course. On a new list of all the movies downloaded from popular torrenting site BitTorrent, the merc with a mouth tops the chart over Batman v. Superman, Captain America: Civil War, and The Force Awakens.

Over the course of a number of volumes, annuals and miniseries, Gerry Duggan and his collaborators have turned Deadpool into one of the most tightly plotted and rewarding superhero titles on the stands. Next March, the running tension between Deadpool and his wife Shiklah will finally reach a boiling point as the Queen of Monster Metropolis stakes a claim on the surface world, and it's up to Wade, Spider-Man, and The Mercs For Money to stop her.