Deadpool (2016) / Trivia

Actor-Shared Background: Like Wade/Deadpool, his actor Ryan Reynolds hails from Canada.
Awesome, Dear Boy: To say Ryan Reynolds wanted this movie mainly for the sake of Deadpool, to the point of taking a pay cut, incessantly spearheading the campaign to get the movie made, and stealing a Deadpool costume from the set after the film's completion, would be somewhat of an understatement. It's commonly believed, although unconfirmed, that Reynolds was the one responsible for leaking the test footage to begin with.
Bad Export for You: In many, many countries with stricter censorship codes than the US, the sex scenes were completely cut from the film, and any scenes with anyone's penis visible used alternative takes that obstructed the penis, or an earlier build before the CGI penises were rendered,^note despite the film already being rated to be for adults only to begin with. On the other hand, this is a better option compared to Banned in China in many ways, and the excessive violence, expletives, and crude humor are still left in uncut.
Beam Me Up, Scotty!: Deadpool references the "rich Corinthian leather" meme, which was "soft" in the original ads.
Career Resurrection: Very much revived Reynold's career, with its huge box office and critical success; he is now one of the richest actors in Hollywood.
Celebrity Voice Actor: In the Japanese dub, Vanessa is voiced by veteran stage actress Marika Hayashi.
Character Celebrity Endorsement: Ryan Reynolds appears in-character as Deadpool in a video raising awareness for testicular cancer. He also did one for breast cancer.
Content Leak: In 2014, test footage of what would eventually become the movie's opening scene leaked online. Positive reaction to the footage convinced Fox to move forward on producing the full movie. It's never been confirmed who was responsible for the leak, and the DVD Commentary notes that there's a limited number of people who had access to the footage. The writers imply that Ryan Reynolds leaked the footage, while Reynolds has pointed the finger at Tim Miller or Fox executives who were trying to gauge interest.
Corpsing:
- When Deadpool punches Colossus and breaks his hand, Briana Hildebrand (Negasonic Teenage Warhead) giggles a bit. She was originally just going to give Deadpool a deadpan stare, but it was left in because, after all, she's still in training.
- There's a hint of a hiss of a chuckle when Deadpool takes off his Australian hat in the "Happy Australia Day" video.
Creator Backlash: Tim Miller admits that he agrees with the critics that the villain is the weakest part of the film.
Dawson Casting: A fairly rare aversion; as Brianna Hildebrand didn't turn 20 until a few months after the film premiered, there was no lie in her playing a character with "Teenage" in her name.
Deleted Role: Nathan Fillion filmed a small, unused cameo as a man who offers Wade a napkin when Wade returns to the strip club to see Vanessa; it can be seen as "No 5 Bathroom" in the published version's deleted scenes.
Deleted Scene: See here.
Development Gag: Deadpool describes Professor X as a "bald, Heaven's Gate-looking motherfucker", but then later asks whether the Professor is "Stewart or McAvoy". The latter showed up for X-Men: First Class with his head shaved, and was wearing extensions during much of that movie's filming.
Disowned Adaptation: An unusual case; this movie, along with Fantastic Four and X-Men: Apocalypse, aren't mentioned on Marvel's website, but it has been openly praised by Marvel executives.
Distanced from Current Events: One of the script's first drafts had a Running Gag involving Wade and the other bar patrons betting money on how Amy Winehouse would die. This was cut because Winehouse actually did die sometime afterwards, making the joke both irrelevant and insensitive.
Doing It for the Art:
- Everybody involved has had a hand in getting this film off the ground, from star Ryan Reynolds both taking a pay cut and campaigning hard for the role of Wade Wilson, to the producers working with a meager (by Hollywood standards) $65 million working budget — to put things in perspective, that's only a little more than a third of the budget for X-Men: Days of Future Past. The use of fairly obscure characters with more practical superpowers, aside from Colossus, in the supporting cast was also done to squeeze the most out of the budget. Right as filming was about to begin, Fox told the filmmakers they would need to slash another $7 million from their budget (thus the final amount became $58 million), so characters were combined and a couple of major action scenes were cut.
- Reynolds's dedication to the film was such that when 20th Century Fox would not pay the writers to be present during filming for any needed last-minute rewrites, he paid them out of his own pocket.
- The famous test footage for the highway chase, which was intended to convince the executives of the character's potential, had precisely the opposite effect, convincing them that such an offbeat, violent character would never do well with audiences. So someone high up in production (generally assumed to be either director Tim Miller or Reynolds himself) deliberately leaked the footage onto the internet, which was greeted with delight by viewers who quickly demanded a full movie, which Fox greenlit only a few weeks later. Presumably exactly like the leaker had planned.
Executive Meddling:
- Fox slashed the budget by $7 million, forcing the crew to make numerous cuts to the original script. However, the crew admitted that the budget cuts were actually beneficial to them, as it forced them to cut a bunch of extraneous characters and scenes that could have otherwise bogged down the film's pacing. It also led to a well-received series of jokes:
  - NTW and Colossus are the only X-Men in the movie — there isn't even a five-second Hugh Jackman cameo.
    Deadpool: It's a big house. It's weird I only ever see two of you. Almost like the studio couldn't afford another X-Man.
  - A big Matrix-lobby scene gunfight was planned before the confrontation with Ajax, but they ran out of money. So though Wade demands "all the guns" when Vanessa is kidnapped, he leaves the bagful of guns in the taxi.
  - In The Stinger, Deadpool mocks the audience for expecting a preview or even a Samuel L. Jackson cameo — instead he just tells everyone the sequel has been greenlit, and that Cable will be in it.
    Deadpool: Well, we don't have that kind of money.
Fake Russian: Colossus is Russian, but his voice actor Stefan Kapičić is Serbian.
Late Export for You: In China, it was initially denied a theatrical release for excessive violence, plus some sexual content. However, it premiered in China as part of the Beijing International Film Festival in April 2018.
Meaningful Release Date: The film was released in February 2016, exactly 25 years after Deadpool's first appearance in New Mutants #98.
Orphaned Reference: When Francis first speaks to Wade, he mentions that he was once a patient at the facility, which means the program was up and running before Francis got there. However, from there on out, Francis is treated as the man in charge: Wade even implies killing him will shut the program down entirely. An earlier version of the script included Dr. Killebrew, the doctor who ran the program in the comics. The writers decided his presence muddled up the revenge plot too much and scrapped him, but Francis's backstory stayed the same.
The Other Darrin:
- Colossus is motion-captured by Andre Tricoteaux and voiced by Stefan Kapičić, who replaced Daniel Cudmore, the actor who played the character in the previous X-Men movies.
- In the Japanese dub, Colossus went from being played by Akio Kato in previous films to Masafumi Kimura here.
- In some languages, Deadpool's voice actor is different from X-Men Origins: Wolverine: European Spanish, European French (from Bruno Choël to Pierre Tessier), Brazilian Portuguese, and Hungarian.
Promoted Fanboy: Teamheadkick, whose "Deadpool Rap", originally made as a fan tribute to the Deadpool game, is not only included in the soundtrack with redone lyrics, but plays during Deadpool's Roaring Rampage of Revenge montage.
Reality Subtext: Colossus's attempts to have Deadpool join the X-Men and act like a real hero, and Deadpool having none of it, can be seen as reflecting the real-life push for making a more standard-fare, family-friendly superhero movie, and the filmmakers' (especially Ryan Reynolds) utter refusal to do so, instead keeping the movie as trashy and R-rated as the character deserves.
Saved from Development Hell: The film has been in various stages of development for years. Ryan Reynolds and David Goyer almost got a Deadpool movie off the ground at New Line, but opted to make the ill-fated Blade: Trinity instead. Production finally moved forward when test-footage was leaked onto the internet which met with a swell of popular support. According to Reynolds, it was the test footage that forced Fox to greenlight the movie. They actually had to take out a gag about Amy Winehouse dying because she really did die, a whole five years before the film's release.
Spoiled by the Merchandise: Reynolds jokingly tweeted this, lampshading the tendency for this trope to happen with superhero movies.
Throw It In!: The team said every take was different, and pretty much every actor was improvising something in every scene.
- Several jokes were ad-libbed by Reynolds, most notably the one about having only two X-Men appear in the film due to budget reasons.
  Deadpool: You know it's funny how I only see the two of you here. It's like the studio couldn't afford any more X-Men.
- The opening credits were originally a placeholder, but director Tim Miller found the parody titles funny enough to put in the movie. As a bonus, due to no actual names being in it, the filmmakers were not required to abide by guild rules about crew and actor credits and they could stage the sequence to suit their needs rather than building the sequence around legally mandated credits that needed to be onscreen for a certain amount of time.
- Hildebrand/Negasonic was originally supposed to remain completely deadpan as Reynolds/Deadpool made himself look like an idiot, "breaking" his hands as he continually attempted to punch Colossus, but she giggled anyway, so they kept it in to remind people that she was of course "in training".
Wag the Director: Not only is Ryan Reynolds the lead actor, but he convinced Fox to let him be a producer to prevent anyone from changing the film (outside of necessary changes due to the small budget) and make sure that his character stayed true to the comics.
What Could Have Been:
- Jensen Ackles had discussions for the role of Wade Wilson before the casting of Ryan Reynolds. Ackles was previously offered the part of Clint Barton in The Avengers before the casting of Jeremy Renner.
- Olivia Munn was approached for the role of Vanessa Carlysle before Morena Baccarin was cast, but turned it down due to Creative Differences over the portrayal of the character. Munn would eventually go on to portray Psylocke in X-Men: Apocalypse.
  - Taylor Schilling, Crystal Reed, Rebecca Rittenhouse, Jessica De Gouw and Sarah Greene screen-tested for the part of Vanessa Carlsyle as well before the casting of Baccarin.
- Daniel Cudmore was offered to reprise his role as Colossus from X2: X-Men United, X-Men: The Last Stand and X-Men: Days of Future Past for the film. However, Cudmore declined the offer, as he was unhappy with the idea of only doing motion capture work while another actor dubbed over his lines.
- Robert Rodriguez was originally approached to direct the movie before Tim Miller was hired, but turned it down in order to helm Spy Kids: All the Time in the World.
- There were plans for cameos from various other X-Men, including Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, but the studio denied all of them for being too expensive.
- An earlier draft of the film surfaced online, and while similar to the finished film, it did not feature Angel Dust or Negasonic Teenage Warhead. Additionally, Garrison Kane, Wyre (who would've had the ability to deploy whiplike tendrils from his fingers), and Sluggo were all supposed to appear as Ajax's enforcers. Due to budgetary issues (with the CGI required for Kane's cybernetic arms proving especially expensive), the three villains were combined into Angel Dust, who takes Sluggo's place as the one who fights Colossus during the final battle.
- Miller and the writers considered having Cannonball as the teenage X-Men member partnered with Colossus, with Miller saying he would have been written as a "stupid hick" character. They decided to use Negasonic Teenage Warhead instead, as they felt Cannonball was too silly to work as a Straight Man to Colossus and Deadpool.
- Related to this, the writers would have originally had to have Negasonic Teenage Warhead's powerset be more similar to the comics, as they did not have the rights to change it at first. What did they do? They went to Marvel Studios to ask permission for this to happen. By sheer coincidence, Marvel themselves had wanted to use certain characters^note that 20th Century Fox had the rights to. It worked out well in the end: Marvel got the rights to Ego, while Fox could change NTW's power set.
- Director Tim Miller has said the tone shifted several times in development, with the studio looking for a PG rating at one point.
- Early drafts of the script featured a joke where it would have been revealed that Deadpool's mask was actually a store-bought Spider-Man mask that had been turned inside out. This was presumably cut due to potential legal issues (as Spider-Man's film rights are owned by Sony).
- There was going to be a Running Gag involving Wade and the other bar patrons betting money on how Amy Winehouse would die. This was cut because Winehouse actually did die sometime after the script was written, making the joke both irrelevant and possibly insensitive.
- Patch originally appeared in the script as a bartender, and would have been strangled to death by Wyre when Ajax and his men stormed the bar. His role was ultimately given to Weasel.
- There was going to be a Sequel Hook revealing that Ajax was actually just a puppet working for Doctor Killebrew, the real mastermind behind the experiments that mutated Wade.
- Cable almost made it into the movie, but it was decided that his introduction would work better in a sequel.
- The gag involving the Deadpool action figure from X-Men Origins: Wolverine and the WHAM! album was originally slightly different, and was more of a Take That!.
- The original plan for the stinger was yet another Call-Back with Deadpool finding Beast shitting on his lawn and chasing him off. They even went so far as to approach Nicholas Hoult, who absolutely loved the idea, but again it proved too expensive.
- Taskmaster was in the script at one point, but like the above instances, was cut for being too expensive, especially since Marvel still owns the rights for him.
- Bob was originally meant to be the actual Bob from HYDRA, but a combination of the film's limited budget and possible legal action from Marvel forced the writers to take out any explicit references to HYDRA.
- The writers and director had to figure out how to trim $7 million out of the film's budget in 48 hours, or else production couldn't begin. While in most instances this is a sign of a Troubled Production (especially given the production troubles of Fantastic Four, filmed around the same time), everyone thought the changes made the movie much tighter. The deletions they made included:
  - The condensing of Wyre, Garrison Kane, and Sluggo down into Angel Dust.
  - A motorcycle chase between Ajax and Deadpool.
  - A pitched gun battle at the scrapyard, which was solved by introducing the Running Gag of Deadpool forgetting his ammo bag in the taxi.
- Other pitches for the end credits included a 1980s Knight Rider style sequence, and an Honest Trailers version done by the actual crew of the web series.
- Ajax was supposed to be scarred by Wade, who would've put "Hi, my name is Francis" on his forehead, and get arrested after the fight with Wade.
- Wade was originally supposed to Mercy Kill Worm.
- One idea for Colossus was to make him a cloaked figure who liked to hide in the shadows.
- Vanessa getting kidnapped was supposed to have been a fight sequence. It was choreographed, planned, and prepped, but the production fell behind schedule on the day it was supposed to be shot and there was no money for overtime or to come back at a later date so Tim Miller simplified it down to Vanessa being knocked out so that they could get it done in the mere 30 minutes they had available.
Word of Gay: Tim Miller stated in an interview that this version of Deadpool is supposed to be pansexual, but this is barely even hinted at in the actual movie.
Working Title: Deadpool's working title was "Wham!", named after George Michael's former group. Their album Make It Big and their song "Careless Whisper" both appear in the movie.

Trivia / Deadpool (2016)

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Trivia / Deadpool (2016)

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