‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ Writers Unpack Major Cameos and Who Said No, and Hint at the Source of That Iconic Leak (2024)

[Editor’s note: The following interview contains spoilers for “Deadpool & Wolverine.”]

Judging by its box office numbers — currently approaching one billion dollars — it’s safe to assume you’ve seen “Deadpool & Wolverine” by now. And spoilers will not faze you in the slightest because, as we’ve established by its box office, you’ve seen the movie. Because what you’re about to read is a deep dive with co-writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick (who have been involved in all three “Deadpool” films) on a lot of the closely guarded secrets of Shawn Levy’s “Deadpool & Wolverine”— again, a movie you’ve seen.

Ahead, we’ll find out who said “no” to appearing in “Deadpool & Wolverine.” We’ll learn all about Chris Evans’ return as Johnny Storm. Did you like Channing Tatum’s take on Gambit? Well, we have some information about that, too. What was the scene Reese and Wernick very much wanted in the film but couldn’t pull off logistically? How early in the process did they think of introducing Henry Cavill as an alternative universe Logan? Here’s great news: You will soon have all these answers.

Also, remember back in 2014 when the “Deadpool” test footage leaked? Footage that, if it hadn’t leaked, maybe there wouldn’t be three “Deadpool” movies today? To this day, no one quite knows who did that, other than the core group of “Deadpool” players — and they aren’t saying. I’ve even asked before and never gotten a direct answer, but considering that 20th Century Fox no longer exists, why not try one more time? What Reese and Wernick told us this time is as close to the most we’ll ever know. (And it may or may not involve, you guessed it … Frank Stallone.)

The following interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

IndieWire: In the scene with Jon Favreau as Happy Hogan, did you want Robert DowneyJr. in that scene, too? Or did you know when writing it he was going to play Doctor Doom?

Paul Wernick: We had wanted him to do a cameo. We had written that scene [to start] with Happyand Downey.

Rhett Reese: Ryan Reynolds wrote the scene with both of them, so in the hopes we could get Downey. But he also wanted Favreau, because they’re a great combo, and they were all in the scene together.

Wernick: Behind the scenes, we didn’t know about the Doctor Doom. 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.

Since we’ll never see Downey in “Deadpool & Wolverine,” what was going to be his role or punchline?

Reese: It was a version of what you saw in the sense that he 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. And then Jon [Favreau] was, graciously, connected to it from the start. It worked out great. 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.

Wernick: We haven’t told anybody this, but 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.

Reese: That’s a little bit of a scoop, but he was going to get mad and basically attack each one of them in a vicious kind of way.

Give me your favorite vicious attack against an Avenger.

Reese: He was definitely going to try to pick up Thor’s Hammer. We did have that in there.

Wernick: I think Peter [Rob Delaney] was in the room, and Peter just casually picked up Thor’s hammer.

Reese: Oh, that’s right. Peter casually picked up Thor’s Hammer in the background. That was the joke. You’re right. You’re absolutely right. Originally, Peter accompanied him there. There were never screenplay pages, but it was the idea of the scene. I remember pitching that he was going to try to get Captain America to swear. I don’t really remember too much else in terms of the details, but yeah, he was going to dress them down to be sure.

You know what that scene sounds like? It sounds expensive.

Reese: And an impossible schedule! Can you imagine trying to coordinate that? I mean, we lucked out on “Deadpool 2.” We had a cameo with all the X-Men, but they happened to be shooting a movie at the time together. It’s really easy to grab them. Simon Kinberg grabbed them on his set and shot that side of it, but we didn’t have that here and, goodness knows, it would’ve been impossible. That’s sort of like the “We Are the World” documentary where they tried to get Bruce Springsteen and Billy Joel and Cyndi Lauper, Michael Jackson all together at once. Impossible.

And then you would’ve probably had your own Prince who doesn’t show up.

Wernick: It would’ve been Downey.

When I interviewed you for “Deadpool 2,” you told me you wanted Chris Evans as the Human Torch for that movie but it didn’t happen. Now you’ve done it.

Wernick: Oh, my God. I have no memory of that at all. Do you?

Reese: That’s amazing. No, that would’ve been awesome.

I asked you was there any post-credit scenes that didn’t make it, and Paul said, “There were different codas kicked around. There were more X-Force interviews that were talked about, one was Chris Evans as Human Torch. And the other was Deadpool killing baby Hitler.”

Reese: Oh, my gosh, that’s so funny. I don’t remember that at all.

Wernick: I don’t either.

So wait, you forgot that you wanted to do this in the second one, and then you get him anyway?

Wernick: It’s interesting. That Johnny Storm bit existed before we had locked in a story. That was up on the board as a scene that we wanted to put in the movie in some form or fashion with whatever story we were going to do. It was one where we pitched it and everyone was like, “Oh, that’s going in the movie. I don’t know what the movie is, but that’s going in the movie.”

Did you want people to assume he was kind of the Nomad version of Captain America at first?

Reese: Yeah. I mean, there’s that one moment where Captain America — or, well, who you think is Captain American is actually Johnny Storm — I think he drops an F-bomb. He swears, and Deadpool kind of clocks it for a second. He looks at him like, “What?” It’s the first clue that it might not be the square-jawed Captain America that we’re used to. It could have been a different Captain America, or in this case, it turned out to be Johnny Storm. But that was the first clue that maybe it’s not the sacred timeline Cap whom we’ve grown to know and love.

Which of the Fox Universe characters did you really want to get and, for whatever reason, could not?

Reese: I think the answer’s nobody. I think everybody we asked said yes.

Wernick: Daredevil we wanted.

Reese: Did we want to get Ben [Affleck]? We never asked Ben though, I don’t think.

Wernick: At some point, Ben was on the list.

Reese: He was on the list, but I don’t think it ever came into script pages or actually asking him. One of the great joys of “Deadpool” is the fact that, in its success, it became easier and easier to attract other folks to the movie. I mean, Ryan has these folks’ names generally on in his Rolodex. Not as though Rolodex exists anymore, but his contact list.

I believe he uses a Filofax.

Reese: Exactly. He’s got his pager on his belt. So, he reaches out to these folks, and it’s been the rare “no.” I mean, Downey was the only “no” we’ve ever gotten, I think, in terms of people just saying, “Hey, I don’t want to do it.”

Wernick: We got a “no” from Gwen Stefani on the first one for “Hollaback Girl.”

Reese: Since “Deadpool” became a popular movie, we’ve always joked who would say “no” to Ryan? Would the Pope say “no”?

I bet the Pope says “no.” I would put money on the Pope not wanting to be in “Deadpool.“

Reese: Probably the Pope would’ve said no, but we got Brad Pitt and Matt Damon, and they’re on the level, in the same tier, as the Pope in my book. So yeah, it’s an easy call. Wesley Snipes, I think there was some trepidation. Would he want to return to this role? It’s a long time and what’s Wesley up to and stuff, but he said yes. It was awesome.

Wernick: We’re going to see a headline in 15 minutes: “Pope says no to ‘Deadpool 3.'”

With Gambit, was that the Cajun accent Channing Tatum was going to use in his version that never got made? Or did you tell him to play that up a bit?

Wernick: I’m pretty sure that, yeah, Channing was going all in on the Cajun, and my guess is I think he played it up just a touch in a few spots so that you couldn’t understand him. But yeah, I think that was the basis of Gambit’s accent that he really committed to. And that Cajun accent is real, man.

What’s your favorite joke in this that no one’s really talking about?

Wernick: I’ll start. I mean, one of my favorites, when they’re in the minivan, and they’re about to brawl, and Wolverine goes, “One word, just say one more word.” And Deadpool goes, “Gubernatorial.” It always gets me going.

Reese: Because it just sounds so silly! There was a joke that [co-writer] Zeb Wells wrote about fighting crime: “Friends don’t let friends leave the house looking like they fight crime for the Los Angeles Rams.” And I laughed so hard when I read it and then it fell out for whatever reason. It wasn’t in the next, or the second, third draft, I’m not sure. Someone took it out, either Shawn or Ryan. And I remember lobbying, “OK, I’m selfish enough to admit that I’m always lobbying for my own jokes as opposed to other people’s. But in that particular case, I’m like, that joke has to go back in the movie.”

How early in the process was Henry Cavill’s scene as Logan?

Wernick: Really early. I mean, it wasn’t Chris Evans early, but once we locked in Hugh [Jackman], and we were out on the hunt for anchor being Wolverines, I think Ryan locked in on this Henry Cavill thing very early on in the process of that.

That got a big reaction at the premiere.

Reese: We figured it would. Boy, does he look great, by the way. He looks [as if in] an alternate universe, in a parallel multiverse, he is playing Wolverine somewhere. I don’t know if you clocked it, but when he kind of [Reese mimics a punch]…

Yes, from “Mission: Impossible.” The Reload.

Wernick: When he reloads from “Mission: Impossible” in this? It’s f*cking badass, man.

Was there any iteration where you brought Josh Brolin back as Cable?

Wernick: Yeah, look, we had access to just about everybody, right? And creatively, we wanted to tap into this idea of people or characters who didn’t get their proper ending at Fox to pay tribute to them, to give them a legacy. I think on the Cable side, absolutely he was considered. I think it’s just he was just in “Deadpool 2.” So, the idea of giving him a proper ending, he’s still a character that, my guess is, will appear in the Fox-Marvel mash-up universe at some point, would be our guess. But he didn’t make the cut on this one, unfortunately. We love him and would love to have seen him in it though.

Speaking of the future, let me word it this way: It would be kind of weird at this point if we didn’t see that Thor and Deadpool scene play out 18 movies from now or something, right? That has to happen down the line, and everyone will laugh.

Reese: I know. There have been certain TV shows and movies that have written a flash forward without a real plan and then have to work their way to it. I think that’s the plan here. I mean, we’re either going to ignore it in the long run or we’re going to write to it. And my guess is now that it’s there, it’s part of canon. We’ll try to write to it. It’s so funny. And the idea of giving, in “Deadpool,” yet another death scene or near-death scene, we love that bit. We love that in “Deadpool 2.” And this one has one, too, where you think he’s gone for a second before he reappears. Why not do another one with Thor? An emotional one, maybe, where Thor’s actually crying. It seems like a fun challenge to try to get that mark.

Was Chris Hemsworth on set with Ryan for that scene? Were they together?

Reese: Oh, I think they borrowed that footage from something. Didn’t they, Paul?

Wernick: I think so. I don’t know.

Reese: I think they borrowed Thor’s side of it and then put in Deadpool’s side of it? But I’m not 100 percent on that.

Regarding the original test footage that leaked of “Deadpool” that got everyone excited: I asked if that was a planned leak, and last time, Paul said, “It was a little bit of a plan, but it wasn’t through Fox. It was actually leaked, I don’t think we can ever reveal it.” So, that studio doesn’t exist anymore…

Reese: I don’t know what we should say. We know who leaked it. I don’t know them personally. It was an intentional leak. It didn’t unintentionally get out into the universe. It wasn’t anybody at Fox and it wasn’t anyone in our core team. I will say that it was not Ryan or us.

Wernick: It was a friend of the court who believed in the movie and wanted to see it get made.

Reese: And interestingly, they did it without the permission of the person with whom they were friendly. Because they didn’t want to implicate that person. They took their own initiative. It was two people, and they took their own initiative and did it because they figured it was better to ask forgiveness.

Wernick: Ah, you’re getting clues! Two people!

Reese: And they decided it was better to ask forgiveness than permission, and so did it. They were technically savvy enough to cover their tracks and, yeah, it’s always been speculated. Interestingly, I don’t know the two people personally…

Wernick: All right, he’s giving more hints!

That narrows it down to about six billion people.

Wernick: Yeah, the honest truth is we desperately wanted to leak it. We did. We have emails — us, Ryan, Tim Miller — saying, “How do we leak it? Do we just go to Comic-Con and drop a DVD off? Let it fall on the ground and have someone find it?” Literally, it’s like a ship of fools as to how we were going to leak this footage.

Reese: I just think you get worried that someone’s going to trace it back to you, and you’re going to get sued by one of the biggest corporations in the world. It was scary. And none of us had the guts or the technical savvy to do it. And then someone did it for us. Ironically, the legend is, its apocryphal was, that the leak is what got the movie green-lit. And that is actually not true. It helped our cause, I think, [though] we were still without a greenlight weeks, months after that, and we were still dead.

Wernick: And then there were steps once we did get the greenlight — it was a blinking green light. And then they said, “Well, we’ll make this movie, but we have to get it under 50 million bucks.” There was a 24-hour period that Rhett and I cut. I think we were at $58 million, and in 24 hours, we cut $8 million out of the script.

Reese: Those numbers don’t sound quite right to me. I think it was 64; we got it down to 59. That’s my memory. It was more like 5 million, but they definitely needed a “five” in front of it. And that scene where Deadpool forgets his guns late in “Deadpool 1”? The reason he forgot his guns was that there was this huge gunfight that took place in act three that we just couldn’t afford. So, necessity being the mother of invention, that’s what happened.

That’s a fair and thorough answer without implicating anyone. I am satisfied.

Reese: Yeah, and that’s the truth! I mean, you’re getting the truth, and that’s a scoop in and of itself. And I think, yeah, basically, you understand it, and we don’t have to worry about who those two people were.

And you’ve cleared a lot of names off the list that I think people assume are involved.

Wernick: They were brothers.

Reese: What’s that?

Wernick: They were brothers.

Reese: Oh, is that true?! Oh my God, you’re now narrowing it down.

Wernick: A lot of brothers out there. I’m pretty sure they are brothers.

Reese: And you identified them as male and not female. So you’ve done that.

Wernick: You did that, too!

Reese: I said, “They.”

Wernick: Oh, you’re right.

Well, based on all of this, I’m going to assume it’s Sylvester and Frank Stallone. That’s my headline in 15 minutes: “The Stallones got ‘Deadpool’ made.”

Wernick: I love it. Frank Stallone. It was all Frank.

Reese: I think Marvel would be cool if you beat the embargo on that one. Just do it in 15 minutes. Run with it!

“Deadpool & Wolverine” is now in theaters.