Ryan Reynolds pitched Disney on a crossover between Deadpool and Bambi

Is there anyone (whose name isn’t Bob Iger or Bob Chapek) who is more delighted by Disney’s cannibalization of all pop culture than Ryan Reynolds? The man clearly loves playing in other people’s toy boxes, because it gives him an endless supply of wacky things to do as Deadpool—like the recent “Deadpool and Korg react” video he did as a teaser for Free Guy. As it turns out, though (and as lampshaded in the actual video), Korg wasn’t Reynolds’ first choice for a Disney-owned character who could be paired up with Deadpool. Speaking with IGN, Reynolds said he initially pitched Disney on a short where Deadpool met the hunter from Bambi, but rather than killing him or whatever as revenge for Bambi’s mom, Deadpool would turn out to be a big fan who wanted the hunter’s advice on how to become the most-hated character in the history of Disney. Very Deadpool, certainly, even if it does have even less to do with Free Guy than Thor’s friend made of rocks.

Reynolds said Disney rejected the idea, naturally, so he went back to the drawing board and landed on the Deadpool/Korg idea. Of course, if you want to argue in favor of an extremely inconsequential conspiracy theory, you could point out that Taika Waititi plays the bad guy in Free Guy and also does the voice of Korg, so it’s a straight line between “Ryan Reynolds promoting Free Guy” and “Deadpool watching a Free Guy trailer with Korg,” which would imply that the Bambi story may just be a funny thing he made up to illustrate how his wacky sense of humor grates against the control Disney has over its intellectual property… but it’s just going to waste everyone’s time if we all start trying to apply some version of reality to the life of a guy who bought a soccer team in Europe as a joke.