Ryan Reynolds and Shawn Levy revealed on the “Deadpool & Wolverine” director’s commentary (via Games Radar) that the film’s ending changed thanks to a note from Blake Lively and less than two days of reshoots. Lively appeared in the movie as the voice of Lady Deadpool. Reynolds and Lively have been married since 2012 and have four children together.
“We did just a day-and-a-half of reshoots on the movie, which we’re very proud of,” Reynolds said. “These kinds of movies typically involve weeks of reshoots. But this speech that Matthew [Macfadyen] has is one of the pieces that we reshot. And he is miraculous.”
In the original “Deadpool & Wolverine” ending, the two superheroes save the world by destroying the Time Ripper but their fate is never in question. The heroes immediately survive the events and live to see another day. The sequel’s reshoots tweaked the scene so that Deadpool and Wolverine appear to sacrifice themselves and die in order to destroy the Time Ripper. Their fates are unknown as Macfadyen’s character, Paradox, gives an impassioned speech that is ultimately disrupted by the heroes’ surprise return, all while the Goo Goo Dolls’ “Iris” blasts on the soundtrack.
“And credit where credit is due. It used to be that there was no suspense, that the power room blew up, and our heroes had survived,” Levy said of the scene change. “And it was Blake Lively who said to us, ‘You know, I’ve been with you this whole movie. I want to sit in the fear that they’re lost. Let me be in that place of suspense so the triumph of their survival is more emotional and visceral.’”
“That was a Blake note and it really opened up a new way of thinking about this part of the movie and it’s why we did this reshoot… and, here, the payoff is so much more satisfying,” Levy added.
“Deadpool & Wolverine” is the second highest-grossing movie of 2024 so far with $1.3 billion worldwide, which also makes it the biggest R-rated release in history. The film’s success has continued on Disney+, where it earned 19.4 million views in its first six days of availability. Those numbers make the Marvel tentpole the most-watched live action film across Disney+ or Hulu since the streaming release of “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” in early 2023.
Both the “Deadpool & Wolverine” theatrical cut and a director’s commentary version are available to stream on Disney+.
