Warning, Today's episode contains spoilers for all of Deadpool's big screen appearances. That includes X Men origins Wolverine on all the Deadpool movies. So you don't watch those things and you intend to watch them, and you care about being spoiled from those things, maybe watch them first then come back. Hell my name is Jasononcepcion And on Mesday Night and welcome back to X Ray Visions week long coverage of all things Deadpool.
So Wolverine.
We're dropping episodes every single day leading up to the release of Deadpool Wolverine, covering everything from both characters comics origins, to the long history of their film adaptations.
In today's episode, it's another chunky omnibus. We're revisiting the previous two Deadpool movies, from the decade long fight to the Get Deadpool GREENLT to the abandoned plans for a sequel, and the almost abandoned third movie, Deadpool and Wolverine.
Let's get into it.
In two thousand and five, Ryan Reynolds met with Perennial.
What a time mark.
He met and he met with Avia rad a perennial real life character in these types of stories, who we talk about a lot, the former chairman, CEO and founder of Marvel Studios, and signed on to take the role of Deadpool all the way back in two thousand and five. Imagine that at the time Marvel was hoping to develop the movie with Davides Goya.
We've had him on the show, Comic and Commision movie himself.
He'd worked on the Blade trilogy, Batman Begins, he's now doing Foundation. You know, he's a very sensible cinematic fellow.
It's a good choice to go with. The rights to put on the big screen at that time were owned by New Line Cinema, who we know for all the fantastic horror movies and cool stuff like that, but they never moved forwards with it, and eventually they sold the rights to twentieth Century Fox in two thousand and five, who had purchased the film rights to The X Men in nineteen ninety three and Fantastic Four in nineteen ninety eight.
If you remember, that.
Was when Marvel was essentially insolvent going through bankruptcy, so they sold off a lot of their rights for a very little amount of money, and we are still living with the ramifications of that now.
Once twentieth Century Fox became involved.
The movie ended up hitting even more delays and eventually ended up languishing in development.
Hell enter X.
Men Origins Wolverine. Four years later, Reynolds joins the cast of X Men Origins Wolverine as a version the introduction of Wade Wilson the murc with a Mouth question mark. We'll get into that. There are rumors that Reynolds felt pressure to take the role here or else risk losing a character he really passionately wanted to play to some other actor. The opening of the movie does feature a wise cracking Wade Wilson talking about how much he loves
his katanas. He's trash talking all his fellow mercenaries in the film, which I believe is the screenwriting debut of David Bennioff of Game of Thrones fame. Since this took place during the rite strike, much of Wade's dialogue was just Reynolds improving.
The movie obviously shapes his kind of career with Deadpool because he has been that voice since then totally.
Now I mentioned the Mark with a Mouth, which is Deadpool's nickname. Once Wade acquires his healing factor powers in this film, he has his mouth. I don't know if you would call it sown shut or really the skinny.
Stapled or something like that sealed up.
So he never gets to wisecrack at all, and he doesn't wear his costume, even though he does become ostensibly the final boss villain of this of this film. The post credits scene of the movie led some to believe that his inclusion was meant to lead to a spinoff.
Does seem like that? Yeah, that never materialized. Meanwhile, Fox continued to hold a deadpool in development limbo, and that limbo became even more goopy and hard to escape after Reynolds's turn as Hal Jordan in twenty eleven's Green Lantern hit the sidewalk with a terrible and juicy.
Thud, super juicy thud. And also, let's be real, we're already.
In twenty and eleven here, so we're talking six years off the Reynolds first had his beginning with old Avier Rod, so uh yeah, time to make some fucking chimmy changas.
Let's talk about actual development.
After X Men Wolverine's successful opening, nobody talks about that.
Is that people love people. People love over read the movie was bad, but people love.
Over read plans for a Deadpol solo Let me.
Just say one.
I want to say one thing about X Men Origins Wolverine. I was super broke at the time that movie came out. I really wanted to see the movie, but I had no money, and so I did download a pirated cam of the movie, which is how I saw X Men Origins Wolverine. That's how I saw that movie for a illegally Turkish cam or something like that.
Probably how David Benioff exactly how he wants to watch it. Definitely, So after the success of that movie, financial not critical, I will say plans for though I will say I watched that movie at least once a year.
It's very entertaining. Plans for a.
Deadpool solo movie were revisited in January twenty ten. Rhtt Reese and Paul Wernick, who had worked on Zombie Land, Very Good and gij Retaliation, were hired to work on a spin off that would feature more comics accurate version of the character. A version of the Ari script was leaked.
That is true.
It was a big deal, which the fan loves, and the studios then brought on director Tim Miller in twenty eleven, who had created some test footage with Reynolds. The studio was unimpressed with it, and after the success of Avengers, began exploring other options for dead Pool, including appearing in ensemble movies. But then, lo and behold, three years later, in one of the most auspicious leaks of all time, we still want speaked it.
Who could have done this?
Who could have done this? Says a man in a hot dog costume. The CGI clip was less than two minutes long, but featured what eventually became the opening of the twenty sixteen movie, including many of the same jokes and musical cues, and it was essentially like a very cool fight scene inside a car. He's chopping people's heads off, he's being quippy.
You know. It's very Deadpool.
While the studio had initially been hesitant on the project, the leaked footage received incredibly positive reaction, which Reynolds feels is exclusively the reason that the movie got made. Fox finally gives the go ahead for Deadpool movie to be released in twenty sixteen, and years ago the studio had very silly of them pushed for a PG thirteen version of the character.
Since I get why our movies, particularly our movies that are genre movies, they don't usually make money. It's very uncommon for them for that to happen.
The Joker was the first rated movie to make a billion dollars, you know, which in a superhero age you would think was not the case.
PG thirteen. Also, you can get away with a fair amount.
Yeah, in PG thirteen. We've seen some pretty scary PG thirteen movies. But after the test footage, which was very distinctly not PG thirteen twentieth Century Fox, that allowed the creative team more leniency, partly thanks to having a much smaller budget. Reynolds described the movie's fifty eight million dollar budget as the cocaine budget for most superhero movies.
That's a lot of cocaine, right.
I mean sixty sub sixty million dollars, even in what was this twenty twenty, twenty ten, twenty tens. That's really not a lot of money.
No, it's not a lot of money at all.
And he said the creative team felt less pressure from the studio make the movie at the price the way you want to make it. And as you know, the cocaine budget for X ray vision.
Is extremely high.
It's so big, Me and Jason are always doing those drugs and stuff, so you better listen to these ads so we can afford the illegal substances.
And we're back from doing cocaine now. The smaller budget naturally forced changes. Early drafts of the script featured Garrison Kane aka Kane however you know his cybernetic arms and don't we love a cybernetic arm? As a dead Pool mentions in Deadpool too, don't we love a bionic arm?
That was too much for the CGI budget. Ajax was originally meant to be working for doctor Emerus Kilbrew and however they just basically had to simplify the story and start reaching kind of deeper into the character bin for
cheaper to produce characters. There was pressure to include Cable in the movie, seeing as Deadpool has you know, has a long and storied association with Cable, but ultimately the writers felt it was better to let Deadpool stand on his own two scarred, gnarled feet and push Cable to a later sequel. The movie opened Friday February twelve, Bound Times Day Weekend twenty sixteen and was a massive, like
you can't overstate it massive massive success. More on this in our quick hitting segment at the end of the episode. But it was a huge success, going on to earn some seven hundred and eighty two million dollars and change at the box office, massive return for an rated film.
Post credit scene featured Deadpool doing his best first Bueller impression and teasing the audience that he'd be back and that the next movie would feature that's right, son of Cyclops himself and Gene Cable Cable, our good friend Cable. Two months after the release of Deadpool, it was confirmed that the writer's recent Paul Wernick, director Tim Miller, and star Ryan Reynolds would return for the sequel Listen you Get, You get a crew that creates a hit movie, just
run it back. Reynolds signed a new contract giving him more creative control, including a say in casting. In October of twenty sixteen, director Tim Miller left the film amid creative differences with Ryan Reynolds. Miller wanted to push for the sequel to be more stylized, while Reynolds was more focused on the R rated humor. I think we could say that Reynolds, at this point, after over ten years
of development, road in his relationship with Deadpool. I think he understands the tone of that character and how to translate that to the feature.
Film, and he succeeded.
Additionally, Miller was supposed toly wanted Kyle Chandler from Friday Lights to play Cable, but Reynolds did not good casting.
I'm sorry, I'm interested, but a big enough star.
Name agreed in staid, we get a grimacing Josh Brolin who's already fanos in the FCA.
He's just gone wild. But who cas But who cares?
And also at this time we're talking about two different companies, Fox and Marvel Studios. In the aftermath, Tim Miller shared his ideas for The Sea, featuring a progression of Vanessa storyline where she becomes the iconic, well the iconic in terms of Dead Cole comic character Copycat, also Wade's girlfriend in the comics. It also featured a fight between Juggernaut and the Thing whoa the Thing in the film's third act. A month after Miller left, director David Leach signed on
to direct the sequel. Reynolds, Rhyes Wernick split the scenes into three parts, and each one wrote one part before passing the round to the others. There was a strong desire to include X Force in this and that influenced the film's theme.
Yeah.
By twenty seventeen, the film was still looking to cast Deadpool's two major allies, Michael Shannon, David Harbor, Pierce brasn and all were believed to be in consideration. Eventually was announced that Zazi Beats was cast as Domino. This is in twenty seventeen, and following a month, it was announced that Josh Brolin had beat out the previously aforementioned middle aged actors for the role as Cable, and it was rumored that Fox hoped to use the introduction of Cable
and Domino to spin off an X Force movie. However, this has never materialized.
Interesting Okay, so the filming was not without controversy. The second movie began shooting in June twenty seventeen in Canada under the working title Love Machine. On August fourteenth, so soon after they began shooting, stunt woman Joy Harris died in a motorcycle accident performing a stunt for the movie. Joy had never done stunt work before and was not wearing a helmet because she had joined production only a week before and they had not had time to fit
a helmet under the Domino wig for the scene. Many criticized the production for using Harris instead of a veteran stunt performer, arguing her racing experience did not qualify her as an able performer for the stunt. Productions shut down for two days immediately after the incident, and reports came out that the film's crew were exhausted and working incredibly long days, with reports that some days had increased filming to over fifteen hours a day.
So this is obviously terrible, and I think it's made even more complicated by the fact that there was a veteran stunt performer who had done these kinds of stunts, ready and willing to do it. But part of the reasoning for going with Joy was sazy beats is black. The stunt performer, it's black, and unfortunately it has resulted in this person passing. The stunt community was really critical of this. The fifteen hour days thing is like, that's every movie.
They do feel it.
Is, Well, that's what I was going to say.
That I think is really interesting is around the same time as this, there was like a crash when people were being taken home from the set of Riverdale or something, and I think one of the drivers ended up being injured. And I think that these long hours and this kind of exhaustion and people not sleeping properly, and they're not being safe ways for people to get to and from
set or be on set. This is an ongoing problem in big budget movies, in indie movies, as we saw with the Russ shooting with you know that Alec Baldwin was recently the trial was dismissed about, but like that was another example of it. Sadly, this is not an industry that always values the people who are part of making the movies possible.
Yeah, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, even fifteen hour days, it's not uncommon in TV and movies.
That's pretty much part of the course.
It's not a judgment, that's just what it is.
Yeah, that wasn't the only controversy that beset the movie either. In late twenty seventeen, sexual misconduct allegations against TJ. Miller surface, and you might be like, well, what's he got to do with it? He was actually in the first movie as his like Deadpool's like annoying friend. He's in Ish the second one, he's in ish the second one, the allegations were particularly horrendous, and some began calling for his
removal from the film. In April of twenty eighteen, Miller was arrested for calling in a fake bomb threat on.
An Amtrak train.
You know, we do it starts getting easier, like okay, my guy. Witnesses on the train claimed he was heavily intoxicated and had heated exchanges with a woman in the first class car with him. He was then removed from the train for being inebriated, but he was not removed from the film, at least not fully. I can imagine that there was a cut with more. Yeah, so it was not an easy shoot, and reshoots are very expensive.
So listen to these ad breaks so that we can cut around the stuff that's not supposed to be in the poplar.
And we're back.
Deadpool two was released May eighteen, twenty eighteen, and would go on to grow some worldwide total of seven hundred eight five point eight so just under seven and eighty six Newllion dollars on a budget of one hundred and ten million, not quite the ratio of the first movie, but still, like inclu imreredibly impressive. Fandago and Regal Cinemas revealed that the movie had the most pre sale tickets they had ever had ever for an R rated film ever in history. Ever, it also set the record for
the widest rated release ever. Fox hinted at a new Deadpool movie, which wound up being titled Once Upon a Deadpool. The movie was announced as a PG thirteen version of Deadpool two and would be released in theaters from Decever twelfth and twenty fourth.
Reynolds only agreed to support.
A PG thirteen version of the movie if portion of the profits were donated to charity, specifically a cancer charity. Here's the thing about R rated movies and why studios don't necessarily like them, is because it's not because the
kids can't go. The kids end up going. What they do is they buy a ticket to a PG thirteen movie and then they sneak today go and some other movie ends up getting that money, and so the release of a PG thirteen version is really just a way for them to seize back the profits which were going into whatever other PG or PG thirteen movie was in the theaters at that time.
I will say I do think they came up with a fun idea, which is they did like a Princess Bride esque reimagining of the movie.
But yes, so the dollar of every.
Ticket sale went to the cancer charity campaign rebranded as Fudge Cancer in the movie.
Very funny of you.
So development began on a third Deadpool movie, an actual separate Deadpool movie, not just a recut PG thirteen version, as.
Well as a separate X Force project.
However, after twenty first Century Fox was purchased by Disney in twenty nineteen, a large part of which may or may not have been to get back those Fantastic Four rights that they had sold to Fox many many years ago, all development on future X Men movies was put on hold, including Deapol three and Force. Reynolds met with Kevin Faiy to discuss integrating Depport into the Marvel Cinematic universe, where he was apparently told he could not use Wolverine.
Very interesting.
After working with director Sean Levy on Free Guy and the Adam Project, Levy was hired to direct the next Stepple movie. Also I'd just say Free Guy very fun movie movie. It has lots of Marvel Easter eggs thanks to the fact that it was a twentieth century movie that got moved to Disney, So if you like this kind of stuff, you'll probably enjoy it. Levy, Reynolds, Reese, Wernick, and zeb Wells oh Hi zeb Wells worked on a number of script ideas but began to hit a block.
Marvel and the writers all struggled to find that a story idea that worked, and Levy and Reynolds considered telling Figy they thought the project should not continue at the time dunt dund dund. But in August twenty twenty two, Ryan Reynolds was preparing to meet with Figy to discuss their pole's future when Hugh Jackman reached out to him and expressed a desire to reprise his role as Wolverine in the film. Allegedly, he said, I'll probably have more
fun on that movie than anything I've ever done. Figi initially advised Jackman not to return, as he felt the characters arc ended so well in Logan True. However, he was convinced when it was suggested that Jackman would portray a new version of Wolverine, tying into the Marvel multiversal storytelling arc. Logan director James Mangold expressed his enthusiasm about the story idea, and pre production began less than two
months after Hugh Jackman joined the project. Fans are especially excited about the introduction of a more comically accurate costumes for both main characters, with a brighter red and large black eye circles for Deadpool and the classic yellow and blue suit for Wolverine, which we had all been waiting for.
Deadpool. Wolverine opens July twenty sixth. Jason, do you have some Deadpool facts for us?
Let's go to the Deadpool Facts. We like to end every show with a series of quick hitting segments. In today's quick silver the fastest Deadpool fact race known to the human race, and here it is Deadpool Facts, Deadpool Fact number one. Deadpool was Tim Miller's directorial debut. Miller co founded Blur Studios in nineteen ninety three of VFX Company.
For landing Deadpool.
Miller worked on the title sequences through Blur to David Fincher's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Alan Taylor's Magnum Opus for the Dark World. You should say that's why Tim Miller and Ryan Reynolds were able to create this really wonderful stunt sequence with Reynolds. Because this was Miller's background in VFX. I wonder who could have leaked the footage.
Deadpool.
As noted, the first movie massive financial success, earning over seven hundred and three million on a budget of less than sixty. Deadpool jokes in the first Deadpool film that the X characters who appear in the film Classus and the super super weird.
And rarely rarely appearing.
Teenage Warhead lie after one page and the but I loved this version that they created in the still one of my favorite.
Marvel movie characters of all time.
So thank you, right, so yeah, Deadpool jokes that this was all that they could afford. Deadpool the original movie was the highest grossing R rated film ever.
For a little while. For a little while.
It is currently the fourth highest grossing rated film behind One the Joker number one, number two, op Oppenheimer number.
Three, Deadpool number two.
Although again, as stated, seven hundred and three on a budget of sixty, I think is to me is better than a budget of one hundred and ten for Deadpool two, and this whatever it was, they made almost somewhat south of a billion. So do with that information of what you will. Much has been written about Deadpool being Ryan reynolds passion project. Less talked about is how Ryan, because of that passion, paid for writers Reese and Paul Wernick to be on set after.
Fox declined to.
Remunerate them for for appearing on set to do rewrites and punch up jokes, et cetera.
I get it.
You know, they were touchy about a budget of less than sixty and they were like, listen, we're pinching pennies everywhere. We're having to put negasonic teenage work somewhere, so we can't pay for these guys to be on film. And and so Ryan Reynolds paid for them to appear, which is wonderful. Love.
How about some Deadpool number two facts?
Yes, ex Corporation, the owner of the orphanage and re education center that housed Russell child mutant. Russell of Deadpool is a reference to the long lived geneticist and all around bad guy Nathan Essex aka mister Sinister. The one eyed willing joke then Deadpool makes is a reference to the legendary pirate captain and On Detra of the movie The Goonies, which featured that movie a young Josh Brolin riding a BMX bike Love Young, BMX Wonderful. Deadpool was
created by artist Rob Leifeld and writer editor Fabian the Chenz. Lifefield, by the early nineties had become a major star at just nineteen eight years of age X Force launch in nineteen ninety one by Lifefeld and Chins have become a
huge hit off of life Feld, spurgeoning popularity. The original team lineup featured Boom Boom, Cable, Canniball, Domino Ferrell, Shatterstar and Warpath and as an example of just how pop cultural zeitgeisty Rob Leifeld was, Here's a Lee's five oh one jeans commercial directed by Spike Lee featuring Rob Leifeld, Play It, Dynasty Fixen Joan Collins On the next line, I saw that you can make a living at it.
You'll hear no.
Complaints and you created x forts.
Where does this drawing on?
This is the Spike man?
What's this right now?
This is the camera on top of your head that we record the wrong doings of ever.
So, Rob, have you had any formal art training, No, just a lot of imagination.
I think, Wait, so, so I say it and then look down or just open it and say it.
The fly button. How crazy that is, truly nuts.
Just one of the wildest things of all time.
I think about it a lot, I watch it a lot, I talk about it a lot.
If you another great thing to do, go and watch the.
Trailers so you can see the visuals, so you can see little Rob Liefeld at the center of the trailer. Also, go and just search like Rob Liefeld nineties comic bookshop or Jim Lee nineties comic book shop.
Like they would have.
News crews from local news going to signings. These guys did because there were like hundreds of people showing up for these signings. Lest we forget after all of this, when Jim Ley, you know the reason that they left and they went to Image Comics, that X Men number one issue by Jim Ly still the biggest selling comic of all time, eight million pre sales.
Based its truly crazy selling.
GI I know.
It's a different level.
It's like brand right now.
Yeah, to have a comic book creator in a national ad campaign for a major clothing brand and the commercial director by Spike Lee would have to mention, by the way, the Spike Man that that lifelp is drawing on his little pad. They're no feat on that sketch of the character.
Well, that's it for this episode.
Pigs for Listening bye x ray Vision is hosted by Jason Sepsion and Rosie Knight and is a production of iHeart Podcasts. Our executive producers are Joelle Smith and Aaron Kaufman. Our supervising producer is a booze Afar. Our producers are Carmen Laurent and Mia Taylor. Our theme song is by Brian Basquez.
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