How do you top Deadpool 2? In the years after the 2018 hit, Ryan Reynolds and company struggled with that exact question on their hunt for the right idea for the franchise’s threequel.
Now, of course, we know the answer – rope in the Wolverine. Later this month, Reynolds and Hugh Jackman will co-headline perhaps the year’s most anticipated film, Deadpool & Wolverine, which marks the debut for both in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and opens a host of possibilities for the future.
As it turns out, the film nearly didn’t happen. Reynolds and director Shawn Levy struggled for years to come up with the right idea for the film until Jackman called Reynolds and told him he wanted to once again don the claws of his most famous character, who he first played in 2000’s X-Men.
But what were the ideas Reynolds and Levy were pitching to Marvel before Jackman made the call? Wendy Jacobson, the film’s executive producer, revealed the proposed concepts for Deadpool 3 before Jackman joined the cast.
“There were so many ideas. We had an indie road trip-type movie with Deadpool and Dopinder,” she tells The National, referring to the taxi driver played by Indian-American actor Karan Soni in the first two films. “We had a Deadpool deleted scenes extravaganza, where we were going to try to recreate iconic scenes from the MCU films, but now you're seeing what you didn't see before – Deadpool was there, his footage just got cut.
“At one point, there was an idea for a frame-for-frame remake of Thor: The Dark World but with Deadpool until the first act break. It really ran the gamut."
While there were many concepts on the table between 2018 and 2022, Jacobson notes that there was a marked difference in the pace of ideas before and after Jackman volunteered to join. “Before Hugh raised his hand, it’s crazy how long we were trying to develop and figure out what the movie is," she adds. "As soon as he was officially on board, we had our first draft of a screenplay in eight weeks. And we were prepping that and gave that to the crew and were shooting six months later."
Part of the reason for the struggle is that Deadpool & Wolverine was the first idea that Reynolds had for the film – which the actor recently revealed was initially rejected by Marvel.
According to Reynolds, he pitched a Rashomon-style story, referring to Akira Kurosawa’s famed 1950 film, which features the same story told from three different perspectives and has since become a popular storytelling device in film and television.
“The first act is through the prism of my experience, so I see Wolverine a certain way,” Reynolds said last week. "The second act is Wolverine sees me a certain way. And the third act is the objective experience."
Marvel head Kevin Feige said “absolutely not", Reynolds said. He also pitched an idea for Deadpool to star in a short film in which he’s interrogating a man. "And we come to find out he’s the hunter that shot Bambi," he said. "He was like: ‘We don’t [expletive] with Bambi. I was like: ‘OK, sorry, I didn’t know it was a sacred cow.'”
Even if Feige had said yes to the Rashomon idea, Jackman's participation was far from a sure thing. While the Australian actor has proudly embraced the character for as long as he’s played him, he publicly declared he wouldn’t return after the 2017 film Logan killed the character off, to solidify the film as a conclusive ending – something rare in the world of superheroes.
Jackman added: “The truth is, I meant what I said when I said I was done. I announced that before we shot Logan, and then about three days after that, I saw the first Deadpool in 2016, and about 15 minutes into the movie, I said: ‘Oops’.”
The idea of a team-up stuck with Jackman for years. “I could see the two characters together," he added. "All I kept thinking was 48 Hours, The Odd Couple and Planes Trains and Automobiles. I could see how these two characters would work.
“And then on August 14, 2022, I was driving and it came to me that I wanted to do it again – I wanted these two characters together. I thought Shawn and Ryan were about to shoot, so I pulled over on the side of the road and rang Ryan, and said: ‘I want to do this. Please tell me you’ll do this.’”
As luck would have it, Reynolds and Levy were mere hours away from meeting with Feige for a final pitch, for which the two threw out the ideas they had planned and reworked everything around Jackman joining the proceedings. This time, Feige said yes.
While Jackman doesn’t receive a writing credit for the film, after the script was written, he did send a long voice note to Reynolds, who co-wrote and co-produced, adding some ideas that became integral to the final product.
“Hugh knows this character better than else,” Jacobson says. “This is his 10th time playing him. It was very important to protect the legacy of Logan. Without spoiling it, I will say he took us in some amazing directions for the character and his arc, and he said he got to scratch an itch with this character that he’s been dying to for all these years.”
Jackman’s dedication to the character and the project gives things a propulsive energy that power the film, which often leaves Jacobson in awe, she says.
“On the last day on set, while filming our last scene, Hugh – I don’t even think he had a line, but he had his sleeveless suit on – before every take, he was doing 10 push-ups," she adds. "Just utter commitment from start to finish."
Deadpool & Wolverine is being released across the Middle East on July 25
