Nobody seems to hate bad Ryan Reynolds movies more than Ryan Reynolds, which is fair enough. After all, the actor’s disdain for Green Lantern has long since become the stuff of legend, while he sarcastically laid the blame for the “trash fire” that was X-Men Origins: Wolverine squarely at the feet of Hugh Jackman.
There weren’t many elements of the iconic mutant’s first standalone blockbuster that managed to escape the wrath of furious criticism, but Reynolds’ Wade Wilson was ironically one of them until the third act, before the brain trust at 20th Century Fox decided the best use of a fan favorite character nicknamed the Merc with the Mouth was to literally have his most famous appendage sewn shut.
Liev Schrieber’s Sabretooth also got a pass, which was entirely deserved when he did the best he could as everything around him fell to pieces, which is saying a lot when everyone knows Origins peaked in the first scene. Of course, Deadpool is now a multi-billion dollar franchise with a threequel currently underway, and the Ray Donovan veteran revealed to GQ that he couldn’t be happier Reynolds got the chance to course-correct.
“I mean Ryan did such a great job with that transition, ’cause I felt like it was, in many ways, so antithetical to who that character was in Origins. But I’m glad that Ryan was able to correct that mistake.”
If it wasn’t for Reynolds repeatedly mocking his first outing as Deadpool at every turn, then we’d have all forgotten about X-Men Origins a long time ago. Like Schrieber said, though, we’re glad he got the chance to turn the tides.