When Disney purchased 20th Century Fox in 2019, the future of the Deadpool franchise suddenly became muddled.
Deadpool was far and away Fox’s biggest superhero franchise, delivering two films that rivaled even the highs of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU).
Photo: Fox
With Disney now the owner of the distinctly R-rated franchise, would Deadpool’s story be able to continue in the family-friendly world of Disney? Eventually, the answer was a definitive yes.
Reynold’s Original ‘Deadpool 3’ Pitch Was Rejected
While Deadpool is indeed set to enter the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) for Deadpool & Wolverine, as it turns out, the final film was not the first idea that Ryan Reynolds pitched.
Image Credit: ABC News
In a recent interview with Empire, Renyolds revealed that he first envisioned a “Rashomon story about Wolverine and Deadpool and something that they got into together, but told from three completely different perspectives,” he explains. “It was a way to make a large-scale movie in a very small way.”
When Reynolds pitched the idea, Kevin Feige turned it down. According to Marvel’s head, he wanted the film to help drive the MCU’s bigger picture forward.
Source: Complex.com
“The truth is, I wasn’t even sure how to incorporate Deadpool yet,” the Marvel boss admits. “I was very much thinking about how to bring mutants and the X-Men into [the MCU], and I thought it needed to be more than just playing the hits. But the truth is, Ryan is an idea machine. So he may have pitched that to me, but he also pitched 25 other thoughts and ideas.”
Reynolds Wrote 18 Different Treatments
Luckily for everyone involved, Reynolds was an idea machine.
“I went back to the drawing board, and I wrote up about 18 different treatments,” Reynolds recalls. “Some of them almost like a Sundance film, a budget of under $10 million, sort of using the IP in a way that they previously hadn’t used, and I pitched bigger movies, and I pitched things in-between.”
Photo: Hugh Jackman on Instagram
The final breathrough for the film wouldn’t come until Hugh Jackman agreed to return as Wolverine, then, things got rolling.
“We definitely spun our wheels a little bit trying to find the reason for this movie to be,” said executive producer Wendy Jacobson. “Once Hugh raised his hand, two months later we were prepping. It was honestly one of the fastest turnarounds I’ve ever seen.”
Photo: Marvel
Deadpool & Wolverine will hit theaters on July 26.
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