He might be an unkillable pain in the you-know-what, but there was a time when Ryan Reynolds considered Wade Wilson meeting his end in the final act of Deadpool & Wolverine. During his appearance on The Box Office podcast, when he also discussed his pitch of an R-rated Star Wars movie, Reynolds confessed that his beloved alter-ego almost met his end, only for the studios to suggest otherwise.
“There’s always the thought of killing Deadpool in the last one,” Reynolds explained. “Again, it’s like listening to the movie. Me, [editors] Shane Reid, Dean Zimmerman, and [director] Shawn Levy must have reworked that third act for 45 days straight." In the end, it took the inclusion of Madonna's "Like a Prayer" to change his tune. "Finally figuring it out — I am such a needle-drop person, but I’m really working hard to embrace score. It was Rob Simonsen who really helped us get there by blending score, needle drop, and all these things that gave you that feeling we were working for.”
Marvel Studios was pleased with the change of heart and expressed interest in keeping the Merc with the Mouth in future films. “Studios are like, of course, it’d be fun to play around with this guy in the future, because he’s a cheat code,” Reynolds recalled. “He can say things that everyone might be thinking, and it gets you out of trouble.”
So far, he's happy with what was delivered in the threequel that saw him finally pair up with Hugh Jackman's grumpy walking, talking cutlery set. “I liked the misdirect for audiences, thinking [Deadpool] was entering the MCU, who are we going to see? We got Jon Favreau! And then nope, nope, nobody else. We looked back instead of forward," Reynolds said. "For us, it was emotionally resonant to have a send-off, an acknowledgment of what got us to here. Warts and all, the movies that didn’t work, the movies that worked.”
As for Deadpool's future in the MCU, it was recently revealed that Reynolds has been working on an idea that would see Wade team up with a small band of X-Men, although nothing has been nailed down just yet. Whenever it happens, it'll have to be some time after every other MCU movie and show that's on the way, which you can learn all about here.
