Dead Poo, More Like

Another day, another super-hero film on the way. Today it’s Green Lantern, and the news that’s just parped out is that Ryan Reynolds is to be cast in the title role.

Reynolds does not feature in my book of Bad Actors, but he does appear in my much smaller book of Actors Who’ve Played Characters With Atypical Names. Ryan’s entry in this book includes such gems as Jay ‘Boom’ DeBoom, Bobby Rupp, Paul Nodel, Henry Lipschitz, Captain Excellent, and Kevin. Could it be that Ryan’s choice of characters is based on the fact that his middle name is Rodney? Ryan, I know you’re reading this, let me know.

But I digress. This post is not about Ryan Rodney Reynolds’ daft character monikers, nor is it about the Green Lantern movie, although it’s worth looking forward to because it’s a DC Comics property and it’s directed by Martin Campbell (GoldenEye, Casino Royale). I know precious little about Green Lantern as a character so I’ll leave all that business to sites run by those who know their mustard and are already getting their grundies in a twizzle over the casting of Triple R.

No, this post is about my hope that, because of Reynolds’ new job, the mooted Deadpool movie he was due to star in will be unceremoniously shunted to the arse end of the list of movies to be made in the next century.

For those in the dark, Deadpool was a character in the crapmungous X-Men spin-off X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and was due his own spin-off for no obvious reason, least of all that anybody actually wants to see a Deadpool movie. So this spin-off of a spin-off has hopefully spun off into the spin-dryer of bad ideas, never to spin anywhere again.

I mean really, why bother in the first place? Let’s take a cursory glance at a random selection of all-time classic films featuring characters from other, almost universally better, movies. For the sake of impartiality I’ll include each film’s rating out of 10 according to readers of the Internet Movie Database, my personal bible.

Alien (and Predator) gave us Alien vs. Predator (5.4). Return Of The Jedi gave us Caravan Of Courage: An Ewok Adventure (5.2). Daredevil (which was rubbish enough itself) gave us Elektra (4.9). Batman Returns gave us Catwoman (3.2. Yes, THREE POINT TWO). Furthermore, none of these cinematic turds made nearly as much money as the movie bottoms from whence they came, which is what seems to count far more than mere public opinion.

So, having studied these figures carefully, the powers that be decided that what the world really needs is a spin-off of a spin-off, which brings us back to Deadpool. Let’s hope that it remains unmade because the only benefit to mankind I can envisage would be my capsule review, which would be: “Dead Poo, more like”.