Ryan Reynolds says Fox forced him to cut a joke about Disney from Deadpool 2
Mergers: They’re the spice of life, as long as that spice is the thing that gradually chokes off all other flavors and forces you to select from an increasingly small list of consolidated options drained of distinction and homogenized under a unifying corporate mandate. The stuff entertainment dreams are made of!
All of which is to say Ryan Reynolds has admitted 20th Century Fox, the studio that produces the Deadpool franchise, forced him to remove a joke about Disney from the upcoming Deadpool 2. On what is doubtless a wholly unrelated note, Disney purchased Fox late last year. What a coincidence! In a new interview with Entertainment Weekly, the star and co-writer of the upcoming antihero sequel says the studio dropped the hammer on a gag from the movie:
This is a sore spot for me because there’s a joke in the movie that is not in the movie now because—I’m probably not even allowed to say this—Fox made me take it out. It had more to do with Disney, and they made me take it out. As I look back at it, I think maybe that was a wise decision.
While Reynolds doesn’t say exactly why he now considers it a “wise decision,” that shouldn’t stop us from wondering if there’s anything terribly wise about having studios exert that kind of censorship which, as EW alludes, is almost certainly about the bummer of a corporate acquisition between one giant studio and an even larger studio. Perhaps it was just wise in terms of not hurting Reynolds’ future career options? The actor has poked fun at the merger in the past, with social media posts that are clearly the type of thing Disney and Fox no longer want to allow the public to hear.
Regardless, the actor is still making the rounds for his new film, which includes another attempt on Reynolds’ part to make that Deadpool/Wolverine movie happen. Mashable reports the Deadpool star mentioned that Deadpool 3 was less likely to happen than a group film (possibly X-Force), and during the discussion, reiterated his continual push for the duo to team up. “I’d love to see a Deadpool/Logan movie,” Reynolds said. “A wolviepool movie, if I may. That would be fun, but Hugh Jackman is apparently retired despite the fact that I’ve been protesting almost hourly.” And it’s true: Hugh Jackman has had it with that shit.