Ryan Reynolds Warned Fox That Wolverine Origins Was A Disaster

Back in 2009, the world was introduced to Wade Wilson through X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Well, kind of. Most fans of the mouthy merc steadfastly refuse to acknowledge the film or its portrayal of the beloved Marvel character. The poorly reviewed film butchered the crass, witty mercenary and turned him into a weirdly tattooed puppet whose mouth was sewn shut. Today, fans still struggled to understand how the film’s depiction of Deadpool was cleared for action, but Ryan Reynolds tried to stop the whole thing from happening.

He really did.

In a new interview with GQ, Reynolds spoke to the magazine about his tenure as Deadpool. Earlier this summer, the actor reprised his role as Deadpool with a standalone film that both critics and fans adored. Reynolds has said before that he’s wanted to play Deadpool on the big screen, but he was less-than-thrilled with how the character was used in X-Men Origins.

Reynolds recalled some of the effort he put into making Deadpool as canon as possible for X-Men Origins. “My dialogue in X-Men Origins: Wolverine[,] I wrote. I mean, in the stage directions it just said, “Deadpool shows up, talks really fast, and makes a lot of jokes.” At the beginning of that movie, that’s pretty close to Deadpool’s Wade Wilson — we’re in the ballpark with that guy.”

However, as fans know, things took a terrible turn somewhere along the way. “But it [the film] completely departed all canon and reason and he wound up being this abomination of Deadpool that was like Barakapool, with his mouth sewn shut and weird blades that came out of his hands and these strange tattoos and stuff like that,” Reynolds lamented. “If you watch the movie, I’m actually playing only a small section, and another actor, this gifted stunt performer, is doing the lion’s share of that work. The conversation at the time was “If you want to play Deadpool, this is your chance to introduce him. And if you don’t want to introduce him in this fashion, we’ll have someone else play him.”

This isn’t the first time Reynolds has lambasted Deadpool’s inclusion in X-Men Origins, and it won’t be the last. Earlier this year, the actor spoke at a Google presentation and he felt blackmailed by his Deadpool casting. Reynolds recounted a similar story where he approached 20th Century Fox about his concerns over the character’s depiction.

“I remember saying, ‘That’s really going to anger some people. That’s not Deadpool.’ And they basically said, ‘Well, you can play him or we can hire someone else to play him.’ So for me it was…I was a little bit blackmailed.”

These days, it seems as if everything worked out alight for Reynold and his coveted role. Deadpool stands as one of the most lucrative X-Men figures now that its solo film has realized its full franchise potential.

Let’s just hope that they keep needle and thread far, far away from Deadpool’s loose lips this time around.