Deadpool Animated Series Set for FXX

Deadpool is coming to television… in animated form, anyway. The deadly fourth-wall-wrecking Marvel Comics character played by Ryan Reynolds managed to turn the rules of the blockbuster film industry upside down with an R-rated, low-budget, but supremely lucrative 2016 solo film will soon get an accompanying animated series. However, don’t expect this Marvel tentpole offering to cater to the kiddies.

An untitled Deadpool animated series aimed at adults has been given a straight-to-series order by Fox cable outlet FXX. The series, produced by Marvel Television in association with FX Productions and ABC Signature Studios, will manifest with a 10-episode inaugural season set to debut in 2018. The project has yet to cast any voice actors.

Interestingly, one of the brains behind the animated adaptation is Donald Glover, who created the series with his brother Stephen Glover. Donald, an actor known from his run on NBC sitcom Community and the 2015 box-office smash The Martian, is already working under the Fox television umbrella starring in last fall’s imminently returning FX freshman drama Atlanta, which he created and regularly writes with Stephen. The Glover brothers will serve as showrunners, writers and executive producers on the Deadpool series, joined by additional executive producers in Marvel’s Jeph Loeb and Jim Chory. As an enthusiastic Loeb states:

“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.”

Indeed, Fox has just started to take advantage of their rights possession to Marvel Comics’ X-Men mythos in the small screen arena with a peak television offering earlier this year in the Dan Stevens-starring Legion and just debuted the teaser trailer for this fall’s mothership network-set mutant ensemble series The Gifted. While 2016’s Deadpool became a $783 million global hit off a (contextually) meager $58 million budget, it was buttressed by its R-rated antics, rife with coarse language and the occasional bit of nudity; something that makes this animated endeavor a surprise. However, with FXX in place as an edgier platform for the raunchy veteran series It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and the animated spy series Archer, it appears that an adult-oriented Deadpool animated series has the perfect prospective home.

While the untitled Deadpool animated series set a loose premiere for 2018, we can probably count on Fox’s desire for IP synergy to see it premiere somewhere around the time that movie sequel Deadpool 2 hits theaters on June 1, 2018.