"Deadpool" exceeded all expectations in its first weekend alone going from the Marvel-expected $60 million to an actual three-day box office earning of $132.7 million. It's no wonder that Marvel's Chief Creative Officer, Joe Quesada, is quick to send his congratulations to FOX and Director Tim Miller in his Tumblr account.
What's more, Quesada reveals that he was confident in Miller's direction because he was actually a part of the project that properly introduced Iron Man to kids through a series of advertorials.
According to Quesada, he worked with Miller almost a decade ago and their goal was to raise interest in Iron Man as a way to prepare the audience and the studio for the "Iron Man" films. Marvel had to undertake such a job because it discovered that the younger audiences, which the production was targeting, had little to no awareness about Iron Man.
"As we at Marvel began plans on the first 'Iron Man' movie our focus group research showed that we had some serious awareness issues with the character, especially among kids," Quesada says.
Quesada explains that in early 2007, Marvel assigned a small group to them to make three short animated films "with a simple clean story." The short films that would come to be known as Iron Man Advertorials would introduce Iron Man to the younger audiences using two of Marvel's most popular characters at the time as "bait."
So who among the Marvel heroes became bait for Iron Man? None other than our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man and the Incredible Hulk. The three animated shorts with a generous budget from Marvel, and in which high-level Computer-Generated Imagery (CGI) was used, had Spider-Man calling up Tony Stark for help with some advanced and highly weaponized giant robots causing destruction in the city.
The three films were all less than two minutes each and highlights Iron Man as a human inside a high-tech suit with a wide range of powers, as well as being in the same level as the two popular super humans.
The project was a success, of course, considering how many kids flocked to the theaters to watch Tony Stark in action when Marvel came out with the film.
Watch the three-part animated short films below.
Of course, Quesada goes back to "Deadpool" and its success to finish his post. "Congrats Deadpool, congrats to the creative teams and congrats to the comic industry, fans and pros alike [...] 'Deadpool' is just another example of what the industry, its people and its ideas are capable of," he writes.
