For the past decade, Deadpool has become an unlikely success story as the raunchy outsider upended Hollywood norms, broke box office records and reached new heights with this summer’s $1.3 billion grosser, Deadpool & Wolverine. The character also transformed Ryan Reynolds into one of the biggest movie stars in the world.
But more quietly, the man who birthed Deadpool has parlayed that success into rewards almost unheard of for any comic book creator. Over the past year, writer-artist Rob Liefeld capitalize on the cachet from the character with a multiple deals involving producers and studios hoping to find “the next Deadpool.”
In April, ahead of Deadpool’s July opening, Warner Bros. picked up the rights to Avengelyne, based on a fallen angel character cast down to Earth comic from the 1990s. The A-list package has Olivia Wilde attached to direct and Margot Robbie and Simon Kinberg attached to produce. That deal involved a $2 million payday for Liefeld for the purchase price, according to multiple sources. And while it was a sign of how strongly Warners wanted to remain in the Robbie business after last year’s Barbie, having a comic by Liefeld gave the package extra heft.
Then in October, Liefeld accomplished something that had escaped him for decades: securing the movie and publishing rights to Youngblood under one roof. It was a personal victory, as it was the very first comic published by Image Comics, the company Liefeld co-founded with other superstar artists who defected from Marvel in the early 1990s.
To make the deal, Liefeld made peace with Scott M. Rosenberg, a publisher and producer whose claim to fame was turning an obscure black and white indie comic titled Men in Black into a hit Will Smith movie. Rosenberg also held certain rights to Young Blood creations, a point that bedeviled Liefeld for years. With that issue settled, Liefeld and Rosenberg then teamed with producer Adrian Askarieh to begin setting up the IP. The trio took meetings at CAA, WME, UTA and Range Media in October, hyping the title as the last great superhero comic that isn’t taken. The trio ultimately signed with CAA for the endeavor.
Those two developments are on top of the royalties Liefeld enjoys from the surge of Deadpool’s popularity. Liefeld has a deal unique among creators of Marvel and DC characters. Some enjoy royalties for certain books or receive discretionary bonuses for movie or TV usage from the companies (Marvel pays some creators $5,000 for character’s a movie appearance, for example). But Liefeld receives payment any time Deadpool appears onscreen, in merch, in video games and in comics. It’s a deal that not even Stan Lee, the late co-creator of Spider-Man and Iron Man, benefited from. Nor Jim Starlin, co-creator of Thanos, Gamora and Shang-Chi, or Todd McFarlane, co-creator of Venom.
“When Deadpool exploded into Fortnite, was that really good for my kids’ private education? Yes. Yes, it was,” he told Gizmodo in an 2020 interview. “I have Deadpool revenue streams that have existed since 1991.”
In some ways, 2024 is an unlikely third act for Liefeld. Liefeld burst onto the comics scene as a wunderkind creator, only in his early 20s when he led the Marvel comic New Mutants from a low-selling title on the verge of cancelation to revitalizing it in such a way that when it was relaunched over a year later as X-Force, the first issue sold a record four million copies. Deadpool proved enduringly popular, especially after Liefeld left with other Marvel creators in 1992 to launch Image.
And while Liefeld flooded the comic racks with creations, his tenure at Image was short-lived. By 1996, he contentiously parted ways with the publishing house and his partners. But while his comic and artistic fortunes sagged, his Hollywood life began.
After a New Line deal for Avengelyne in the mid-‘90s, more followed. Few involved an actual published comic. In 1998, an action concept The Mark was set up in a seven-figure deal at Universal with Will Smith attached to star and Steven Spielberg eying to direct.
Shrink! was set up at Columbia in 2002 with Jenifer Lopez attached to star and produce the movie, described as Analyze This with superheroes. The pitch involved just five Liefeld-drawn visuals, and the producers hoped it would eventually launch a comic. Shrink! ultimately shriveled in development hell but was re-set up in 2019.
In 2003, New Line Cinema acquired the sci-fi action-comedy pitch Planet Terry in a deal valued at mid-six against seven figures. The pitch, centered on an intergalactic witness protection program, came with 10 pages of an unpublished comic. It was re-optioned twice, generating more fees for Liefeld.
As these deals took place, Liefeld enjoyed the Hollywood life, attending premieres and hanging out at celebrity-packed house parties. But as with the whimsies of the business, Liefeld saw a dip in Hollywood fortunes and tried to return to comics. The first Deadpool movie revived interest in the artist, however, and Liefeld, never one to miss an opportunity, hustled. In 2016, Avengelyne was optioned by Paramount for $300,000 against $600,000 and had Akiva Goldsman producing. (A bargain when compared to the recent Warners deal.)
Graham King, in a reported seven-figure deal, tried to launch a Liefeld-verse with characters from the creator’s Extreme Studios imprint ion 2017. And the Captain America-like Prophet was semi-close to getting off the ground with Jake Gyllenhaal and Studio 8 in the late 2010s, also in six-figure deals.
It is likely that Liefeld has made between $10 million to $20 million off his creations and reputation as Deadpool’s co-creator, making him the most financially successful American comic artist or writer.
“He is the most successful comic book creator with the least things actually made,” notes one producer. “There’s nobody else is in his category. He has managed to take all his titles and build a little empire.”
The asterisk here is Mark Millar, the author of comics such as Wanted, Kick-Ass and The Kingman, who not only found hit adaptations of his work while influenced the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but also sold his entire comic publishing empire to Netflix in 2017. That deal alone was worth $45 million, according to insiders. (There were rumors that Liefeld attempted to sell his universe of creations to Netflix a la Millar, but that didn’t not get up the chain too far, the insiders said.) There’s also The Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman, who has transcended comics to become a small media mogul via his Skybound Entertainment, which also is behind Invincible and is actively involved with showrunning and other aspects of running a wide-ranging media company.
But Liefeld’s superpower has been to build an empire without needing to build a big company as well.
“There is a real appetite for Rob’s titles because of the success of Deadpool,” notes one producer
