Deadpool 2, which landed into theaters this weekend, gave audiences more twist and turns than even hardcore Marvel fans were probably expecting. As it turns out, part of that involved some trickery from the film’s cast and crew.
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Spoilers for Deadpool 2 below! Only look if you want to know!
In a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, Deadpool 2 co-writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick were asked about the way that the film handled its highly-anticipated debut of the X-Force. As those who have seen the film know, the team gets brought together in the audition sequence shown in the film’s trailers, only for almost all of them to jump out of plane — and quickly fall to their deaths.
For some fans, this was surprising, especially after several of the film’s trailers seemed to hint at Bedlam (Terry Crews) and Shatterstar (Lewis Tan) making it down onto the ground. And according to Reese, that was thanks to the actors’ willingness to shoot fake scenes.
“What the actors were very gracious about doing was shooting footage they knew was not actually going to be in the trailers so we could trick people into thinking they’re in the movie longer than they actually were.” Reese explained. “If you watch trailers and commercials, you’ll watch Bedlam and Shatterstar out on the street kicking people’s ass. It was all done with the knowledge it wouldn’t be in the movie.”
Sure, this certainly isn’t the first time that fake scenes have been used to hide spoilers from a comic book movies. But considering just how little the X-Force members are actually in the movie, Reese and Wernick understood the significance of what they were doing.
“I’d say yes, [we were nervous about the fan reaction].” Wernick revealed. “Absolutely. Terrified. These are characters that childhoods grow up on. So the idea that Shatterstar just jumps out of a plane and dies, then yeah. But our test with Deadpool is, if you couldn’t do it in another superhero movie then you SHOULD do it in Deadpool. It’s like we’re given the license to push the boundaries and it’s a boundary we definitely worry about. It’s shocking and crazy and funny and we built our whole marketing campaign around these guys. People are coming to the movie thinking these guys are gonna team up and be part of this X-Force and in an instant they’re all dead! Comedy trumped better judgment.”
But of course, the film essentially built in a way for any of these original team members to return later on, should they make their way into Drew Goddard’s proposed X-Force film.
“Here’s the beauty of it,” Wernick added, “Deadpool has gotten hold of Cable’s time-travel device so we could always bring back any of these guys if we wanted to.”
What do you think about the way that Deadpool 2‘s marketing hid these major spoilers? Let us know what you think in the comments below.
Deadpool 2 is in theaters now.
