During a recent interview with IndieWire, Deadpool & Wolverine screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick revealed they’d initially written a scene for Robert Downey, Jr.’s Iron Man and the rest of The Avengers cast.
Unfortunately, they’d written it without knowing Marvel’s plans for Downey’s return to the MCU as Doctor Doom. According to Wernick, “Behind the scenes, we didn’t know about the Doctor Doom [plans]. And there’s no way he was going to do both. And then we said, ‘Oh, Downey doesn’t say ‘No’ to Ryan Reynolds, does he? No one says no to Ryan Reynolds.’ And Ryan gave him the hard press. We wrote scenes, and Downey read the scenes, but what we didn’t know behind the scenes was this Doctor Doom thing.”
Reese revealed a version of the scene in question did make it into the finished film, but featuring Jon Favreau’s Happy Hogan instead. “It was a version of what you saw, in the sense that [the Avengers] rejected Wade. He just said he wasn’t a team player or whatever and questioned his team-player abilities. So it was actually pretty close to the scene that you saw. It just had two guys instead of one,” he said. “I mean, look, we would’ve loved to have Downey. But, at the same time, I think Marvel had this ace in their hole, which is he’s about to come back in this different character. So, to have him be Tony Stark? Knowing that Doctor Doom was coming on the heels of that? It just didn’t make sense.”
However, an earlier version of Deadpool’s audition was meant to include every member of the original Avengers, before budgetary constraints and filming schedules were considered. As Wernick reveals, “There was a version of that scene very, very early on that wasn’t written, but was conceived, that had all the Avengers in the room. And Wade was rejected and then he dressed all the Avengers down in a way only Deadpool could do.”
While the film as released does see Deadpool riffing on—well, basically everyone he encounters, we were denied his acerbic, fourth wall-breaking jests at Hawkeye, Black Widow, the Hulk, and company. Until Wade Wilson’s next crack at the MCU, at least, we’ll have to fill in the character’s additional ribald barbs for ourselves.
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