Is there another hero capable of breaking the fourth wall quite like Wade Wilson?
Leading up to the release of Deadpool 2, Ryan Reynolds’ irreverent, gun-toting mercenary has been poking fun at Disney, Josh Brolin, Céline Dion (!) and the DC Extended Universe. And that’s just the promotional campaign.
Because as Reynolds tells Entertainment Weekly, there was one particularly contentious Disney joke that made its way into the Deadpool 2 script. It’s not there anymore, mind you, as screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick were forced to nix the mysterious gag at the behest of 20th Century Fox, though Reynolds believes it was probably for the best…
This is a sore spot for me because there’s a joke in the movie that is not in the movie now because — I’m probably not even allowed to say this — Fox made me take it out. It had more to do with Disney, and they made me take it out. As I look back at it, I think maybe that was a wise decision.
The actor is naturally alluding to the impending Disney-Fox merger that is about to redraw Hollywood’s entertainment industry as we know it, and it’s one that may well result in the Merc returning home to Marvel Studios. Perhaps that’s why Ryan Reynolds recently cooled talk of Deadpool 3?
Whatever the case, the actor has no knowledge of the historic acquisition, after admitting to EW the following:
I really genuinely don’t know a thing about it. I read that [chairman and CEO] Bob Iger felt that there’s plenty of room in that universe to have a rated-R character like Deadpool. This is completely conjecture on my part, but I wouldn’t imagine that Disney bought Fox to dismantle it or something like that. I think that Disney bought Fox so it could have that in its arsenal.
And though 20th Century Fox deemed one Disney joke as a bridge too far, Deadpool 2 seemingly includes a nod to Frozen 2. So there’s that…
