Marvel Studios’ Deadpool & Wolverine will be the first R-rated Deadpool movie to release in China (reportedly with minimal cuts) when it opens day-and-date with the U.S. on July 26th — and it sounds like the Merc with a Mouth’s trademark sense of humor hasn’t been lost in translation. Ryan Reynolds, Hugh Jackman, and director Shawn Levy have been promoting the movie across Asia with stops at the 2024 Waterbomb Festival in Seoul, South Korea, and a 1,000-seat theater in Shanghai, China, where fans in attendance watched 35 minutes of new Deadpool & Wolverine footage that “elicited constant laughter and applause,” according to China.org.
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The footage, which contained glimpses of Deadpool and Wolverine variants from across the multiverse, also revealed an interaction with a major Marvel character (that won’t be spoiled here), according to details that leaked onto Chinese social media. However, Reynolds teased that Deadpool’s MCU cameo-filled first entry into a new cinematic universe is holding back the biggest surprises for opening weekend.
“There’s so many surprises in the movie we don’t want the world to start talking about it before people actually get a chance to see it,” Reynolds, accompanied by a translator, told the Shanghai audience. “But those 35 minutes, they cook. They’re pretty damn incredible.”
“Wait ’til you see the whole thing,” Levy added to cheers and applause. “There are a lot of surprises coming for you later this month.”
Last month, it was reported that the Chinese Film Bureau-approved cuts are “minimal” and are “due to violence, blood and gore, and language.” (Deadpool & Wolverine is rated R by the United States’ MPA for “strong bloody violence and language throughout, gore and sexual references.”) Although the Fox-made Deadpool didn’t release in China in 2016, a version of its R-rated sequel, 2018’s Deadpool 2, earned over $40 million at the China box office when the studio released the PG-13 re-edit Once Upon a Deadpool in early 2019.
Reynolds also expressed gratitude that Chinese audiences will be able to watch Deadpool & Wolverine “the way that it is meant to be seen,” with Levy assuring fans that Deadpool will maintain its adult tone under Disney.
“This is my favorite Deadpool movie that I’ve ever been a part of,” Reynolds said.”[China] welcomed Deadpool & Wolverine, while allowing us to retaineverything that makes Deadpool, Deadpool, and special, and everythingthat makes Logan so unique and singular and special. To be able to bringa movie like this over here, and to be able to show it in the way thatit is meant to be seen, is an extreme privilege for all of us, and notsomething we take for granted at all. So we’re incredibly grateful wegot to do this.”
“I thought that making my first Marvel movie would be scary, or challenging in new ways, and it was a big task,” added Levy, who teamed with Reynolds on Free Guy and The Adam Project, and Jackman on Real Steel. “Because you’re telling a big story of anti-heroes who are also heroes. But I have to say: Marvel let us write the script we wanted to write and make the movie we wanted to make. It is an MCU movie, so it is filled with action, adventure, and big themes, but it is very faithful to the Deadpool tone, which is audacious, irreverent, and always surprising.”
Reynolds and Jackman star alongside returning Deadpool castmembers Morena Baccarin, Leslie Uggams, Karan Soni, Rob Delaney, BriannaHildebrand, Shioli Kutsuna, and Stefan Kapičić; Succession star Matthew Macfadyen joins the MCU as TVA Agent Paradox, with The Crown‘s Emma Corrin as Cassandra Nova. Deadpool & Wolverine is playing only in theaters July 26th.
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Image courtesy of Marvel Studios.
