film / tv / celeb / substack / news / social media / pajiba love / about / cbr
film / tv / politics / news / celeb

Ryan Reynolds Feared He Would Never Play Deadpool Again After Disney Bought FOX

By Andrew Sanford | Celebrity | July 3, 2024 |

GettyImages-520356556.jpg
Header Image Source: Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images

There are plenty of instances where actors were close to playing superheroes in movies, only never to don the cape/spandex/etc on screen. Nic Cage was almost Superman. Tom Cruise could have played Iron Man. Wesley Snipes tried to get a Black Panther movie off the ground in the early ’90s. Close calls with big roles happen all the time. A similar occurrence involves actors only getting to play roles once or twice, leaving behind a series of loose threads and unfinished business.

Cliffhanger endings in superhero films are all the rage. When done well, they can create new stakes while getting moviegoers excited for the next movie. However, plenty of superhero films have ended on a cliffhanger, only to never get a chance to make good on their sequel tease. Franchises have been cut down due to low ticket sales, bad reviews, or some combination. It happened to Ryan Reynolds. He donned a green CG suit to play Green Lantern, never to do so again. He thought the same might happen with Deadpool.

Ironically, Deadpool 2 ended in a way that wraps things up nicely. The character is immensely popular, so he likely wouldn’t have gone away, but it could have been the end for the Merc With The Mouth and it wouldn’t have felt like too much was left undone for ole Wade (you could still make that argument). Still, Ryan Reynolds assumed he wouldn’t be coming back for a different reason. To him, there was no room in the MCU for a foul-mouthed murderer.

Reynolds sat down with Entertainment Weekly and discussed his fear that he would no longer play the role. “I didn’t know if I’d ever be playing Deadpool again,” the actor told the outlet. “It’s not something I would’ve said necessarily publicly, but I didn’t know how a character like that would fit into that world [of the MCU].” It makes sense. The MCU has not been known for its R-rated content. While several “adult” shows were made for Netflix, the tie to those properties was tenuous at best (until it wasn’t).

Given the MCU’s more family-friendly style, it makes sense that Reynolds and co. discussed several different ideas for adding Deadpool to the MCU, including, as he puts it, “a Rashomon story that had these three different points of view.” There is something inherently funny about a Deadpool film playing specifically with POV. Still, that’s the only detail we get. Who knows how the film would have turned out?

The Deadpool & Wolverine star did go a little more in-depth on another pitch for a sequel. This idea would have had more of an “indy” feel (and budget). “Literally, it was a $5 or $6 million budget with no special effects,” Reynolds explained. “It was just a talkie-talkie road trip with me and [Karan Soni’s character] Dopinder and some of the things we collected and saw along the way. It wasn’t meant to be an event movie. If we’re on our way to Point C, it was meant to just get us to Point B. That was the weirdest one. I liked it. I thought it was kind of fun.”

We won’t be getting a lower-budget road trip movie. Instead, Reynolds and Hugh Jackman will take their antics to the multiverse. We’re never getting out of that place.