Turns out it was Bob Iger himself who requested Ryan Reynolds remove that Mickey Mouse line from “Deadpool & Wolverine.”
While talking on the “Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend” podcast, Reynolds recalled getting approached by the Disney CEO about removing a raunchy line involving the company’s beloved mascot.
“The first time he saw the film it was in pretty good shape and he said ‘you got to remove the one line Ryan,’” Reynolds said. “And I was like ‘what line?’ ‘You know the line.’ And I went, ‘Mickey Mouse?’ Yeah.”
He continued, “I was like ‘Bob the whole movie orbits around that line.’ That line is the film, it’s the thrust, the thesis, it’s everything. My brain when he said the one line was ‘Precious. Must keep the line.’ I really had to walk around his office a bit, do a couple laps and then we were good. We switched it up. He just didn’t want the Mickey Mouse joke in.”
Despite being removed from the film, the line still managed to reach the public through the original script that was released through Disney’s FYC portal. The line in question happened after Deadpool learned Magneto was dead – and that Ian McKellan would not be making a cameo in the film.
“F–K! What we can’t even afford one more X-Man? Disney is so cheap,” Deadpool exclaimed. “I can barely breathe with all this Mickey Mouse c–k in my throat.”
Reynolds told O’Brien that because of the script release, the line might have earned more attention than if it was just included in the final product. “Deadpool & Wolverine” director Shawn Levy also talked about the joke with Entertainment Weekly after the scripts released.
“There was only one line in the entire movie that we were asked to change,” he said. “We have made a pact, Ryan and I, to go to our grave with that line, but I will say that it was replaced with an equally dirty line of dialogue about Pinocchio shoving his face up Deadpool’s ass and starting to lie like crazy. I was like, ‘Ryan, that’s your replacement line in response to, ‘Can we clean it up?’ That’s Ryan Reynolds for you, audacious to the very edge.”
