It looks like another key member of the team behind Deadpool‘s success is leaving too.
Deadline reports that 20th Century Fox’s chief marketing executive Mark Weinstock is leaving the studio to become the president of Annapurna Pictures.
Mark, along with his team (working closely with Ryan Reynolds) were behind the fantastic marketing campaign for the film that put a lot of asses in the theatre.
Fox’s marketing operation is being given high marks for their provocative and irreverent campaign, which launched in earnest almost a year ago. “We treated this as a combination of a superhero movie and an R-rated comedy. And Ryan was the real genius behind this,” says Fox domestic marketing chief Marc Weinstock, who made waves at Sony when orchestrating District 9’s marketing campaign.
Weinstock and his marketing and publicity staff at Fox were given carte blanche from the get-go. They worked closely with the Deadpool team — including Reynolds, first-time feature director Tim Miller and writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick — in tossing around various ideas. “We did all of them, and the ones that were great, we used,” Weinstock says.
Now, we’re looking at a film that won’t have the original director, composer or even the marketing executive. I don’t think we’re in any serious trouble, but it’s looking less like the film will feel the same. Although, until they start replacing the writers we don’t need to start panicking.
In other Deadpoool 2 news, Collider claims that the original shooting date for the film was March (before Miller’s exit) not January and alludes the studio doesn’t have a shooting date set, without naming an alternative date to replace the information.
This would of course refute our own discovery of the pending production date posted on Vancouver production website What’s Filming?
Basically, it sounds like they don’t know what is going on officially either. Coming off more like an educated opinionated guess due to the limited pre-production time for an incoming director, but that’s just how I read it.
It makes sense, but we’ve seen Fox rush X-Men productions without changing dates drastically before after losing directors. Most notably with Matthew Vaughn’s quick undertaking of X-Men: First Class when Bryan Singer exited last minute.
There’s a little underestimation of Fox’s notorious ability to stick with slated schedules over delaying films for creative reasons.
I don’t think we’ll know for sure when they plan on starting production until they announce this next director, possibly in a more traditional trade report. We’re expected to hear a director announcement in the next couple of weeks, so stay tuned.
It’s expected release date is said to be aiming for March 2nd, 2018.
SOURCE: DEADLINE