Last Friday, Variety ran an article about how movie studio Twentieth Century Fox (yes, those same guys again) are looking at a variety of options to boost their company’s profit margins in the summer — i.e. their movies are stinking up the joint, and the dough ain’t coming in like it used to. Of course, putting out craptacular fare like “Meet Dave”, “The Rocker”, and “Babylon A.D.” didn’t help matters. Yeah, an expensive Eddie Murphy movie. That’s exactly what the people wanted to see, Fox. Great thinking there, no wonder you failed to get “Watchmen” made.

As a result, the studio is now looking at a couple of potential superhero titles — a “Deadpool” movie that would spin-off Ryan Reynolds’ appearance in the upcoming “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” movie, and a possible return to “Daredevil”, which was released in 2003 and starred Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner. The film didn’t exactly burn up the box office, but it did decent business, and spawned a spin-off movie for Garner’s Elektra character. That movie, alas, bombed.

Here’s Variety with the highlighted parts (via Joblo, who noticed the interesting parts yesterday):

Though Fox has no plans for a major overhaul, the studio has scheduled a strategy meeting to assess the status of its superheroes, a group sorely missed this summer. On the agenda, Fox will mull the possibility of more “X-Men” spinoffs, including a young-X-Men project as well as “Deadpool,” based on a character played by Ryan Reynolds in “Wolverine.” The studio is even considering reviving the “Daredevil” property.

To be honest with you, I liked “Daredevil” more than most people did. It was really one of Ben Affleck’s better movies, and the guy has had — well, okay, it was probably the only Ben Affleck movie I saw that I didn’t want to punch myself in the face for having lured myself into seeing it in the first place. A return to the world Matt Murdock would be cool. Likewise with the “Deadpool” movie. Who hasn’t wanted to see Ryan Reynolds kick some serious ass as the merc with the mouth since he basically played the same character, minus the red suit, in “Blade: Trinity”?

Bring on more Daredevil and a Deadpool movie. Time to make up for sitting on “Watchmen” for all those years, Fox.

Below: “So, er, you work out or something?”