“Deadpool & Wolverine” is set to be Marvel’s only major release this year but apparently, Marvel head Kevin Feige wasn’t initially into it. According to star Ryan Reynolds, Feige actually turned down the actor’s first pitch for the film’s story.
In an interview released on Friday with Empire Magazine, Reynolds noted that he initially wanted to do a “Rashomon” kind of story for the superhero film, making it center on “something that they got into together, but told from three completely different perspectives.” It was an attempt to do what would be a massive film in a much smaller way.
But Feige said no to that. According to the Marvel boss though, it was mostly because he just wasn’t sure what he did want to do.
“The truth is, I wasn’t even sure how to incorporate Deadpool yet,” Feige said. “I was very much thinking about how to bring mutants and the X-Men into [the MCU], and I thought it needed to be more than just playing the hits.”
Feige added that Reynolds “is an idea machine,” and came with much more than just that one option. Reynolds confirmed as much, saying that when Feige sent him back to the drawing board, he came up with roughly 18 other ways of making the film, from big-budget to small.
“Some of them almost like a Sundance film, a budget of under $10 million, sort of using the IP in a way that they previously hadn’t used, and I pitched bigger movies, and I pitched things in-between,” Reynolds said.
In the end, it was apparently Hugh Jackman himself who helped crack the story. It’s unclear what exactly it’ll be, but from the latest trailer, we know that it could involve alternate dimensions, and definitely involves characters we’ve seen before.
“Deadpool & Wolverine” hits theaters on July 26, 2024.