Donald Glover is incredibly hot right now, with his roles in Atlanta and Solo: A Star Wars Story earning heaps of praise, alongside his burgeoning music career as Childish Gambino. However, there is one project that Glover didn’t manage to get off the ground: the writer/actor was developing a Deadpool animated series with FX and Marvel Television, but Marvel opted to pass on the series.
FX CEO John Landgraf has now revealed that the development process fell apart because Marvel wasn’t interested in making the show that Donald Glover and his writing partner/brother, Steven Glover, had pitched. Here’s what Landgraf said:
“They didn’t want to do the show that Donald and Stephen wrote. We would have done show that Donald and Stephen wrote, but it wasn’t our decision. When Marvel decided not to do that show, we parted company with them as did Donald and Stephen. Now it’s totally up to them [Marvel] whether they hire someone else to do a different show.”
Landgraf mentioned that he does “think that Marvel will revive it”, but without FX or the Glovers involved. The exact reasons why Marvel didn’t want to stick with the Glovers and their vision are yet to be revealed.
Donald Glover did make some jibes in a script he posted on Twitter, though. Here are some of the words he put in Deadpool’s mouth in the script:
DEADPOOL: I mean, I get it. Maybe they just wanna sell toys. And this style of comedy isn’t it. It’s more “ha-ha, but I’m mad”. I get that.
DEADPOOL: It just feels like everyone wants something different, but no one wants to do anything different with it. Doesn’t Marvel have enough feel-good minority shows everyone supports but doesn’t watch? I mean, I think our show woulda been funny. I just wanted a place to be honest. (tearing up) And I guess that place is Freeform.
In his recent statement, Landgraf also stressed that Marvel “have the rights” to Deadpool animations on TV. “They own the IP and they have the rights to do an animated adult series based on any of the X-Men characters, and based on Deadpool specifically.”
Sadly, then, it looks like we’ll never see the Glovers’ Deadpool series come to life. We’ll keep you posted as we hear more news, either way.