Deadpool & Wolverine may still be a couple of months away, but Marvel Studios has been pulling out all the stops in recent weeks to build excitement for the highly anticipated team-up.
Entertainment Weekly is the latest outlet to sit down with director Shawn Levy and managed to get a few new details out of the filmmaker regarding his approach to what’s looking like a long list of cameos.
I’ll say we didn’t start off with a wishlist, he admits. From the day we started devising this Deadpool and Wolverine story, we let the story dictate the characters, not the other way around. Aaron and his return as Pyro was an outgrowth of that, and that applies to pretty much all the characters you’ll see in the movie.
This might be a sign to temper expectations, particularly when it comes to some of the wilder rumours out there about who may or may not appear in the threequel.
Ultimately, it’s the Merc with with Mouth and Logan finally sharing the screen in a fan-pleasing way which Deadpool & Wolverine’s success will hinge on. For Levy, Hugh Jackman coming on board was the game-changer.
Everything changed radically on the day that Hugh called Ryan, he explains. We had been workshopping a lot of ideas about possible stories for a third Deadpool movie. Those were story ideas that were more sequelly to the first two Deadpools, but None of them imagined such a seismic shift. I can safely say that the story completely changed and, in fact, came to us very, very quickly starting that day.
Everyone assumed that Hugh’s return was the result of me or Ryan pestering or pitching him relentlessly. But even more miraculously, this was the result of a Hugh Jackman epiphany. He wanted to do this team-up of Logan and Deadpool, and so it really was a sky-opening gift from the heavens type of phone call that changed everything.
This is still Wade dealing with certain issues, Levy continues, but it’s very much two characters, two heroes, and two haunted men hoisted together in a shared journey.
Check out a new still from Deadpool & Wolverine – which sees the duo in the TVA and Wade Wilson holding a TemPad – in the X post below.
Shawn Levy directs Deadpool & Wolverine, which stars Ryan Reynolds, Hugh Jackman, Emma Corrin, Morena Baccarin, Rob Delaney, Leslie Uggams, Karan Soni, and Matthew Macfadyen. The movie is written by Ryan Reynolds & Rhett Reese & Paul Wernick & Zeb Wells & Shawn Levy.
The trades have confirmed that Jennifer Garner will reprise her role as Elektra, with Wesley Snipes, James Marsden, Famke Janssen, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Dafne Keen, Channing Tatum, Blake Lively and, as we mentioned above, even singer Taylor Swift among those rumoured to make an appearance.
Kevin Feige, Reynolds, Levy and Lauren Shuler Donner produce with Louis D’Esposito, Wendy Jacobson, Mary McLaglen, Josh McLaglen, Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick, George Dewey, Simon Kinberg and Jonathon Komack Martin serving as executive producers.
