Deadpool Animated TV Show from Donald Glover Arriving in 2018
Marvel TV and FXX have announced that Donald and Stephen Glover are developing an animated Deadpool comedy TV series, with a tentative 2018 premiere date in mind. The first season of the TV series will run for ten episodes and will embrace the same adult tone as the Ryan Reynolds-headlined live-action Deadpool movie released last year (though there will be no narrative continuity between the live-action film and animated TV show).
Donald and Stephen Glover are sharing showrunner responsibilities on the Deadpool animated TV series, in addition to serving as executive producers and writers on the show. Glover is also the creator of FX’s Golden Globe-winning comedy/drama series Atlanta, the second season of which also premieres in 2018. In another happy accident, Atlanta costars Zazie Beetz, who is playing the Marvel Comics character Domino in next year’s live-action movie sequel, Deadpool 2.
Statements about the Deadpool animated TV show (which has officially been ordered to series) have also been released by both FXX co-president Nick Grad and Marvel TV head Jeph Loeb. Here is the statement from Grad, regarding the Deadpool animated TV series joining fellow Marvel Comics TV adaptation Legion under the FX network’s umbrella:
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“Donald Glover is an incredibly gifted and versatile artist who’ll bring the untitled Marvel’s Deadpool series to life with the same intense, singular vision as his breakout hit Atlanta. With the success of Legion, we’re looking forward to again partnering with Marvel Television to create a series that is bold, striking and entirely original.”
As for Loeb, he issued the following statement, as part of FXX’s press release concerning the news:
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“How much more fun could this be? Deadpool, Donald and FX – the perfect fit for the Merc with the Mouth! We’re thrilled that our relationship with FX that started with Legion continues with what is sure to be a groundbreaking show in adult animation.”
Donald Glover has already firmly established his bonafides in the larger geek community, having voiced Miles Morales in the animated Ultimate Spider-Man TV series and costarred on the cult comedy TV show Community for five seasons. In addition to working on the second season of Atlanta and the first season of the Deadpool TV show, Glover will be playing the young Lando Calrissian in next year’s currently-untitled Young Han Solo Star Wars Anthology Movie and voicing grown-up Simba, in director Jon Favreau’s CGI/live-action version of The Lion King (scheduled to hit theaters in 2019). To say that he is keeping busy and continuously expanding his range as an artist (see also Glover’s rap work), would be an understatement.
The prospect of the Glovers bringing their weird, yet insightful storytelling sensibility from Atlanta (which both of them writer for and Donald Glover headlines) over to the Deadpool universe, is sure to generate excitement around for the duo’s excursion into the realm of cartoon television. FXX similarly reads as being the perfect home for a Deadpool TV series, as the Merc-With-a-Mouth’s raunchy, fourth wall-cracking antics and “mature” shenanigans should easily fit right alongside the likes of the Archie animated TV series and the other strange, adult-oriented programming (both animated and live-action) that pitches its tent at the network.
[Screen Rant]
