“Deadpool & Wolverine” is, sure, the year’s second highest-grossing feature, with a whopping $1.338 billion worldwide. It proved that there was still plenty of gas in the Marvel Studios tank. And it delivered on the epic pairing of Ryan Reynold’s Merch with the Mouth and Hugh Jackman’s clawed hero, somehow both poking fun at Jackman’s turn in the Oscar-nominated “Logan” and enshrining its legacy. It could also find an unlikely spot in awards season.
“Look, Ryan always had a mantra that I heard him say to you (director Shawn Levy) 100 times and to me and to everyone in the crew,” Jackman began.
“Aim for the iceberg?” Reynolds interjected.
“If the expectation is here, we have to deliver above,” Jackman continued. “If you think we’ve got to work 100%, it’s not enough, because the expectation is so high. We were always working hard and whatever bar was there, this, for me, was above.”
For Levy, a newcomer to the Marvel Cinematic Universe but a collaborator with Reynolds on “Free Guy” and “The Adam Project,” “Deadpool & Wolverine” was an opportunity to go beyond what excited people, but in an unexpected way. “I certainly felt like I have this privilege of telling the first story about these iconic characters thrust together,” Levy said. “What could that be beyond funny, beyond action-packed? I thought there might be a chance for it to be poignant, because ultimately, it’s about two really haunted guys filled with self-loathing who save each other. We ended up putting in the final line of the movie, that sometimes the people we save, they save us right back.”
Levy said that the way the movie had connected with audiences was hugely exciting. “But talking with you about this in November is surprising,” he admitted. “This was never part of the plan, but also thrilling.”
Making the movie was like having a “front row to comedy genius,” Jackman said. “It was astonishing to watch—and yet to know that as hard as that is, that was the Trojan horse for heart warmth, for a story of friendship and redemption, for legacy.”
That the movie exists at all feels, to its creators, like something of a miracle. Levy and Reynolds had worked on a Deadpool film for a while and had come up with a bunch of ideas, including, Reynolds said, a “Sundance version with a $4 million budget.” But nothing was sticking and they were almost ready to give up when Jackman called Reynolds and told him that he was ready to play Wolverine again.
“The moment I saw ‘Deadpool,’ one week after announcing ‘Logan’ would be my last, I was like, hmmm,” Jackman said. “I could see it, I could feel it and also I knew that that was an entire avenue/suburb/city that I’ve never lived in, in this character. I felt it was the right time. I just pulled over to the side of the road, and it followed a question in my head of, if you could do anything, what would it be? And that’s what came to me.”
Reynolds admitted thinking something was wrong when he saw Jackman’s call. “I answered the phone like, ‘I know a fixer. Where’s the body?’”
And it’s Jackman’s performance, which is so nuanced and layered and filled with wonderful, subtle moments of both pathos and silliness (the way he looks at the little dog version of Deadpool is priceless) that resonates most with a lot of audiences, especially because he could have simply phoned it in. Jackman first played the character in “X-Men” in 2000 and 11 more times in the years since. In the movie, Reynolds’ Deadpool jokes that Disney will now make Jackman play the character “until you’re 90.”
“Everyone’s capable of complacency,” Levy said. “Hugh turned in one of the great performances that I’ve ever seen take shape in front of me on a set. He found new dimensions and parts of Logan. It was a joy for Ryan and I to write for that but really terrifying. We knew we had something that people might not expect. And it wouldn’t be the audacity of the humor, it would be the soul of this Logan story and his performance as the character.”
So what’s next for the dynamic duo?
“This is where you describe an awkwardly pregnant pause,” Levy said.
“I speak for me, which is, at some point, I’d love to do it again,” Reynolds said, pointing to the appeal of playing the character as part of an ensemble.
“Ryan does leave me a voicemail every third day or so that just says, ‘Until you’re 90,’” Jackman said.
This story first appeared in the Race Begins issue of TheWrap’s awards magazine. Read more from the issue here.
