One of the franchises that Disney will get when its deal to buy the bulk of 20th Century Fox’s assets is complete is the Deadpool series. Unlike a lot of Disney’s programming, Deadpool is not family friendly–that’s part of the appeal and what makes the series so refreshing and unique. But will the House of Mouse’s acquisition of Deadpool change that? It sounds like no.
Disney chief Bob Iger said on an earnings call that he understands there is significant interest in the R-rated Deadpool movies, and he pledged that Disney will “continue in that business,” and potentially even expand to do more.
“We do believe there is room for the Fox properties to exist without significant Disney influence over the nature of the content, meaning that we see that there is certainly popularity amongst Marvel fans for the R-rated Deadpool films, as a for instance,” he said. “We’re going to continue in that business, and there might be room for more of that.”
Iger added that it is not concerned about “standards and practices” considerations when it looks at the assets it’s acquiring from Fox. In addition to Deadpool, Disney is getting The Simpsons and Family Guy, which are known to be edgier and less family friendly. The important matter will be ensuring that more adult-focused programming is branded that way, Iger explained.
“There’s nothing that we’ve really seen in the Fox either library or in the activities that Fox is engaging in today from a standards perspective that would be of concern to us as long as we’re very carefully branding them and making sure that we’re not in any way confusing the consumer with product that would be sort of either Disney product or the more traditional Marvel product,” Iger said.
While Deadpool 2 hit theatres as an R-rated film, a toned down PG-13 cut featuring Fred Savage was released around the holidays in an attempt to reach a wider audience.
No new Deadpool films have been announced, but given the enormous success of the franchise so far, you can expect more to come at some point down the road. Deadpool 2 made a massive $785 million at the box office against a budget of $110 million.
In other Disney news, Iger also commented on how Disney struggled to publish video games internally, so that’s why Disney has partnered with companies like EA for licensing deals.
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