The movie that eventually became Deadpool & Wolverine went through a ton of ideas in the development process. Before Hugh Jackman decided to reprise his role as Wolverine, Ryan Reynolds and the folks at Marvel Studios explored every angle under the sun to try and make Deadpool work in the MCU. The ideas that were explored for Deadpool’s Marvel Studios debut apparently included a movie where Deadpool simply appeared in other MCU movies, as well as a shot-for-shot remake of Thor: The Dark World.
That was not a typo. Deadpool & Wolverine executive producer Wendy Jacobson appeared on the Disney+ documentary Assembled: The Making of Deadpool & Wolverine and revealed that the second Thor film was the basis for one of the many ideas pitched for the new Deadpool.
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“Because of Deadpool 1 and 2, the expectations are just high, and we just want to keep one-upping everything we do. And I think that was proven in part of the early development process. I think Ryan hadn’t 19-20 ideas, throwing everything at the wall,” Jacobson explained.
“I was going through my notes the other day looking at stuff. We had some crazy ideas. At one point we talked about a frame-for-frame remake of Thor 2, up until the midpoint, with Deadpool in it, and then it would go to another place. We had Deadpool’s Deleted Scenes Extravaganza, we were going to try and show that he was in the MCU the whole time, you just didn’t see his scenes because they were all on the cutting room floor. We were really trying to figure out what was the reason for this movie to be.”
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So there was an idea for Deadpool to have his own Thor: The Dark World experience, at least for the first half of the movie. The second half would’ve told a new story and served as a more proper introduction to the MCU for Wade Wilson. That does make the inclusion of the big “Thor crying” tease in Deadpool & Wolverine a little bit more interesting, considering how much more screen time the characters might have shared in this other version.
Also in the new edition of Assembled, Reynolds talked about a few of the pitch ideas he sent to Marvel, which included an ultra-low budget indie type of dramedy starring Wade Wilson in a Deadpool suit.
“I pitched them a Sundance movie,” Reynolds said. “Not kidding, like a $4 million budget Marvel movie with no action, but a Deadpool suit. I pitched them mid-sized, big, small, all kinda of stuff. I’d kind of felt like I’d run the gamut.”
That Deadpool Sundance movie likely wouldn’t have made as much money as Deadpool & Wolverine, but it easily would’ve made an enormous profit on such a small budget.