Deadpool And Wolverine Have Nothing On Cosby And Philbin

To paraphrase another supposedly obsolete content creator of years past, when it comes to superhero movies, in particular the MCU’s iterations, “the reports of their death have been exaggerated”.

Unless you’re living under a rock, by now you know that this weekend’s release of DEADPOOL VS. WOLVERINE not only met, but arguably exceeded expectations,  as THE NEW YORK TIMES’ Brooke Barnes crowed this morning:

Marvel Studios, trying to move past a pair of box office humiliations, deployed two of its most popular characters over the weekend and hit a mother lode.

The potty-mouthed Deadpool and hard-drinking Wolverine — packaged together for the first time on movie screens — were on pace to sell roughly $200 million in tickets in the United States and Canada, box office analysts said on Saturday. “Deadpool & Wolverine” will easily set a record for the largest R-rated movie opening in Hollywood history, even when adjusting for inflation. The current record-holder, “Deadpool” (2016), arrived to more than $175 million in today’s dollars.

“Deadpool & Wolverine” was expected to collect an additional $225 million overseas, for a global total after only three and a half days of play of roughly $425 million — a start on par with Marvel’s “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” (2022), which went on to sell about $1 billion in tickets.

So I guess superhero movies aren’t dead after all?  At least those that feature the kind of attributes that Barnes’ colleague Alissa Wilkinson highlighted in the preview she dropped at the beginning of last week:

“Disney’s so stupid,” Deadpool declares trollishly at the beginning of “Deadpool & Wolverine.” It’s the sort of jab — in this case, at the studio distributing the film we’re watching — that we’ve grown used to from this dude, a potty-mouthed exterminator in a face-obscuring suit vaguely reminiscent of Spider-Man. Not quite a hero, not quite anything else, Deadpool is an answer to the conflicted but upstanding superheroes of 21st-century Hollywood. He kills messily, he makes a lot of inappropriate jokes and, in an industry that practically decrees a profit-boosting PG-13 rating, his movies are always rated R.

A dude with a tude!  Not to mention a proven track record from not all that long ago–before Disney and Marvel conspired to bastardize the MCU with endless multi-part, multi-platform crossover events in quest of a successful launch and cultural injection of Disney+–the sort that demanded the kind of attention that only the uberest of uberfans was capable of.

So through the lens of 20-20 hindsight it would appear all of the answers to the prayers of a supposedly dying genre were right there all along.  But, then again, this isn’t the first time I’ve seen the so-called experts proven wrong.

I lived through the supposed death of the sitcom when hour-long dramas, both procedurals with hunks like MAGNUM, P.I. and nighttime soap operas like DALLAS and DYNASTY were humiliating all network comedy competitors, all at roughly the time when the last vestiges of 70s greatness like HAPPY DAYS, LAVERNE AND SHIRLEY, THREE’S COMPANY and ALL IN THE FAMILY’s successor ARCHIE BUNKER’S PLACE were coming to an end.  But those shows were still kicking butt in rerun syndication, often delivering higher ratings for their stations in early evening time slots than the likes of HARPER VALLEY P.T.A. were delivering against MAGNUM.  (If you never saw an episode of HARPER VALLEY, consider yourself blessed).  And when the networks would gather their affiliates for their fall presentations, stations would remind them that comedies themselves weren’t out of favor, just the bad ones they were now making.

So at just around the time when the genre had been supposedly in throes of rigor mortis, a prescient Brandon Tartikoff took a flyer on a guy who had failed with a sitcom on his network 15 years earlier, but was a well-liked commercian endorser who would fill Las Vegas ballrooms with his standup act.  Brought some talented folks like Ed. Weinberger, Marcy Carsey and Tom Werner into the fold.  Produced one of the funniest and warmest pilots in years.  And, of course, you know the rest about the legacy of THE COSBY SHOW–emphasis on the SHOW, not the star.  And the many shows that followed in their path that went on to reshape the network landscape and make a decent amount in back end sales themselves.

15 years later, I was among the scoffers who were dismissing a week-long August stunt for ABC prime time for an American version of a British quiz show as “filler fodder”.  Regis Philbin hosting a game show?  Heck, the only one he had done previously was a sad, cheap gossip-fest called THE NEIGHBORS that quickly died in one low-rated cycle.   A format that’s basically the old $64,000 QUESTION with a few more wrinkles and zeros, a format I optioned and did run-throughs with only to see them quickly fall apart from disinterest from the executives I needed to convince to give it a shot.

But, once again, there were data points right in front of us.  The British version was working and growing.  Just like sitcom reruns, Philbin was thriving in another daypart, as was the genre, especially WHEEL OF FORTUNE and JEOPARDY!.  And while nowhere near the level of brilliance of Tartikoff, at the time ABC had a pretty shrewd executive named Michael Davies who was himself a British export and championed what he saw as the parallels of potential between the two countries.  And I know you know the rest about WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE.

And I have to believe the Disney and Marvel brass at least allowed for the possibility of success, given the timing and the amount of content that was announced yesterday at San Diego’s Comic-Con, as THE ASSOCIATED PRESS’ Kaitlyn Huamani reported: