When it was first revealed that a PG-13 cut of Deadpool 2 would be coming to cinemas this December, much of the online response ranged from outraged to mystified. But seeing how well-received the original version of the film was, you can imagine that there’ll be a few fans feeling curious about the extra footage that this family-friendly reworking has to offer.
A few weeks ago, we were told that the upcoming release – which was reportedly titled The Deadpool Before Christmas – will come packing 15 minutes of additional footage plus a new character, and sure enough, that still seems to be the case. But it sounds as if Fox has now opted for a new moniker, as the logo below shows us that the film has been retitled Once Upon a Deadpool.
Not only that, but Deadline also has some fresh details for us on what to expect. For starters, we know that the pic will have a limited-engagement run starting on December 12th, which will finish up on Christmas eve. Furthermore, it’s said that most of the movie is made up of footage from Deadpool 2.
However, in an effort to keep things PG-13, a lot of that footage has been edited. Of course, there are also some new scenes included as well, which Deadline says are in the “form of a framing sequence that was conceived by Ryan Reynolds and writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick. Working with a small film crew, the actor and his cohorts filmed all the framing scenes in a single hectic day of guerrilla-style filmmaking.”
“Fox has been asking for a PG-13 basically since the start in 2006,” Reynolds told Deadline on Monday. “I’ve said no since 2006. Now, this one time, I said ‘Yes’ on two conditions. First, a portion of the proceeds had to go to charity. Second, I wanted to kidnap Fred Savage. The second condition took some explaining…”
Unfortunately, Deadline’s report doesn’t shed too much more light on things, but many people have already voiced their opinions on the film loud and clear, and from the sound of it, fans aren’t terribly excited to check this one out. For most people, a Deadpool movie without violence and swearing is no Deadpool movie at all, so it’ll be interesting to see how Once Upon a Deadpool performs at the box office.
Not to mention that with both Aquaman and Bumblebee scheduled for release around the same time, you have to wonder how many moviegoers will even care to see what’s presumably going to be a worse version of Deadpool 2, which has already been out on home video for a while now.