Ryan Reynolds first attached himself to Deadpool in 2004, five years before Wade Wilson made his big screen debut in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. After a promising start that signalled the actor was a fantastic choice to inhabit the fast-talking mercenary, the producers decided to strip the character of everything that made him popular in the first place by the time the third act rolled around.
Hugh Jackman’s title hero faced off against a completely unrecognizable and quite frankly terrible version of Deadpool, who had apparently been waxed from head to toe by the Weapon X program, while the Merc with a Mouth had his deadliest weapon sewn shut. Reynolds may have provided the blank-eyed stare, but it was martial artist and action movie veteran Scott Adkins who performed the fight scenes.
Adkins might not be a household name, but he’s built up a solid reputation as one of the VOD action genre’s leading lights, and he’s been deserving of a crack at the spotlight in a major movie for a long time now, but so far all he’s been handed are forgettable background roles in blockbusters like The Expendables 2, The Bourne Ultimatum and Doctor Strange.
In a recent interview, the 44 year-old opened up on his role in X-Men Origins: Wolverine and admitted that he wishes Wade Wilson had traveled back in time and killed him off during Deadpool 2‘s meta post-credits scenes, after voicing his disappointment at playing the part.
“Well me and Ryan never really interacted on set. When I got the role and went down I was excited. I was fully expecting to see the entire Deadpool costume and all that. When they brought me in and I saw the concept art of the mouth sewn shut and the laser eyes and the claws that pop out, I thought, ‘This isn’t going to work’. I wish Ryan would have called me up for Deadpool 2. You know that bit at the end where he goes back to X-Men Origins: Wolverine? He could have killed me in the end. After all it was my fault.”
Fair enough, but at least one positive is that a lot of people probably don’t know Adkins was even involved in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, let alone as Deadpool, with Ryan Reynolds shouldering most of the blame for how poorly the comic book cult hero was treated the first time he appeared in a live-action movie.