X-Men Origins: Wolverine is one of the superhero movies that most fans would like to forget. Unfortunately, it’s made extremely difficult to forget thanks to the disastrous first big-screen appearance of Deadpool. This movie was hardly the first to anger comic book fans. It wasn’t all bad, though. Reynolds used the failure of this movie to get his own Deadpool movie made.
While it would be hard to deny Deadpool or Weapon XI was a huge mistake, it did present an off-kilter look at an oddly overpowered PG-13 version of the “mutant, with other powers pooled into him.” While it is a blatantly obvious way to present the character’s name, it also reveals that Weapon XI was a mutant prior to the experiments of Stryker, whereas in the comics and the Deadpool film, he is a human being with cancer.
UPDATE: 2022/12/16 00:15 EST BY SHAWN S. LEALOS
Ryan Reynolds recently announced that not only was Deadpool coming to the Marvel Cinematic Universe in all its R-rated glory, but he wouldn’t be coming alone. In a fun YouTube video, Reynolds revealed that Hugh Jackman would also appear in Deadpool 3 , which brings another mutant to the MCU in Wolverine. With Deadpool skewering everything he sees wrong, there is a great chance this could give the new movie an opportunity to throw more shots at X-Men Origins: Wolverine , as this will be Deadpool and Wolverine’s first appearance together since that critical bomb. The good news is that there is plenty in that movie for Deadpool 3 to attack.
Ryan Reynolds Knew Fans Would Hate It
Ryan Reynolds knew the Weapon XI version of Deadpool was going to miss with fans. He tried to tell studio executives in order to get it changed. In an EW interview, Reynolds recalled being told, “‘Play Deadpool in this movie, or we’ll get someone else to.’ And I just said, ‘I’ll do it, but it’s the wrong version. Deadpool isn’t correct in it.’” He finished the film but then pressured Fox into making a standalone Deadpool film, which would take seven years and a Green Lantern movie to finally get the green light.
As it turns out his persistence and loyalty to the character would pay off in the 2016 Deadpool film. Although X-Men Origins: Wolverine had a massive budget, Reynolds proved he connected with the character’s audience when his Deadpool outperformed the massively funded movie. Origins made just over $373 million, and Deadpool grossed over $783 million worldwide.
More Cutting Power
Kyle Hill of Because Science did an episode about Wolverine and X-23’s claws. It was found that reducing the area of the blades would result in more cutting power. X-23’s claws are more proficient because she uses two instead of three blades. Deadpool’s singular blade reduces even more area, making it more proficient at cutting and slashing.
While his blades have more cutting power, the movie utilizes a multitude of different weapons, none of which he makes come out of his own body. X-Men Origins: Wolverine chose to overpower a character rather than using the parts of Deadpool that made him a fan-favorite character: his personality and somewhat deranged mental state. Although they did show a bit of his personality in the elevator scene, it was too short-lived.
Those Nifty Blades Would Not Fit
Not only was Weapon XI a departure from the Deadpool fans were familiar with – it was a departure from science and anatomy. The long blades that come out of his hands are unreasonably long; much longer than Wolverine’s claws. More importantly, they are about the same length as his entire arm, presenting a myriad of problems. It doesn’t take a lot of science and math to figure out Weapon XI’s blades are way too big for a character of Ryan Reynolds’ stature.
Wolverine’s claws are too long, and it could cause loss of mobility in the wrists or elbows, but it is a much easier pill to swallow than the blades used by Weapon XI. The somewhat outlandish blades also present a different problem, in that they are long enough to be heavy. According to Google, the average weight of a Katana is between 900-1400 grams or 2 to 3.5 pounds, which may not seem like much but when held very far from the body would become tiresome.
Pointless Breath
After Wolverine takes a swipe at Deadpool’s neck and kicks him off the ledge, a few interesting things happened. The first was that, as his body and head dropped, his head fell in a perfect spiral to cut the structure with the stolen power from Cyclops. The second is that, after the credits, Deadpool opened his eyes and took a breath. This does not add up since his head was not attached to his body.
The scene was clearly used to introduce the idea of a standalone film for the “Merc with a Mouth.” It would just take seven years to get the green light. This scene also poses a lot of questions about his healing factor. Luckily, X-Men Origins: Wolverine ended up ret-conned out of Fox’s universe for the altered timelines of X-Men: Days Of Future Past.
Marvel Vs Capcom Mocked Deadpool
Fox’s first version of Wade Wilson was obviously ill-received by fans pretty much as soon as he showed his pockmarked face. He was not only brutally mocked across the internet, however. He even managed to catch some flack from a well-known video game franchise. If Deadpool fights Wolverine in Marvel Vs Capcom 3, after a win, Deadpool says, “And that’s how you beat Wolverine, people … AND YOU DON’T EVEN NEED OPTIC BLASTS! MUAHAHAHAHA!”
It is also playing to the rivalry between the Merc with a Mouth and the feral Wolverine to be the best at what they do. The game is not-so-subtly pointing out that Deadpool never needed eye blasts to defeat Wolverine, and Fox never needed to change the character in such a drastic fashion.
Reynolds Improvised Deadpool’s Lines
During 2007-2008, there was a writer’s strike that affected X-Men Origins: Wolverine in an arguably negative way. In turn, it also provided some of the best lines in the movie. Ryan Reynolds told EW, “So we were in the middle of production, there were no writers, no anything. Every line I have in the movie I just wrote myself because, in the script we had, it said, ‘Wade Wilson shows up, talks really fast.’ I was like, ‘What?! What am I supposed to do with that?’”
What he ended up doing was improvising the lines himself, with dialogue very similar to what would make the cut in the later Deadpool film. While most fans were livid about the mostly silent, hulking Deadpool presented in the film, it seems clear the best aspects of this awful character were all thanks to the clever wit of the actor who played him.
His Teleportation Comes From John Wraith
John Wraith was never really a popular character like Nightcrawler, despite the fact that they share the ability to teleport. However, their method of teleportation varies quite a bit. In the film, Deadpool has John Wraith’s teleportation ability, instead of a device like in the comics. In the comic books, Deadpool uses a few different devices to teleport.
His friend Weasel gave him one device, and he later received another called the TDC (Time Displacement Core), which allows him to “body slide” to wherever Cable is currently present. Deadpool’s ability to teleport is important to the character but not important enough to just “pool” it into him.
Ryan Reynolds Only Played Deadpool To Get The Solo Film Made
Ryan Reynolds had always wanted to play Deadpool, and he had always wanted to play him the way he was depicted in the standalone film, but the studio had other plans. Reynolds was told if he ever wanted to bring his version of Deadpool to the silver screen that he had to play Wade Wilson the way Fox told him to, or they would replace him with someone else.
He agreed but was sure to include a hint of Deadpool’s fast-talking personality before his mouth was sewn shut. Reynolds told GQ that he only agreed so that he would eventually be able to rectify the butchering of the character down the line. It only took seven years, a bad Green Lantern film, a meager budget, a war over the film’s rating, and some leaked test footage before he was finally able to bring his project to fruition.
He Wasn’t A Very Good Technopath
Deadpool was actually supposed to have the ability to control technology through Chris Bradley’s power that had been “pooled” into him along with several other mutants. The problem is he only used this power once, and it’s arguably the thing that got him killed. The one time Deadpool is actually shown to use his technopathy, all he does is receive a command from William Stryker.
The assumption here is this was a command from Stryker to Deadpool to remove Wolverine’s head. Except, that’s not how the fight went down. It was Wade Wilson who ends up losing his head. Did Wade Wilson misinterpret Stryker’s command? Did he read that message and somehow think he was meant to lose his head?
Reynolds Tried To Use Green Lantern To Pressure Fox To Make Deadpool
The only reason Ryan Reynolds actually agreed to play X-Men Origins’ bizarre version of the Merc with the Mouth was, so he could rectify all of Fox’s mistakes with a solo Deadpool film. He did, but it took a long time and a second awful superhero film to make that happen. A year after X-Men Origins: Wolverine premiered, Reynolds got tired of waiting around for Fox to not actually green light the stand-alone Deadpool film.
Reynolds told GQ he attempted to pressure the studio, He told Fox he couldn’t keep waiting and that if they didn’t give his film the official go, he was going to have to start committing to other film projects. One of those other projects was Green Lantern, which he deliberately tried to leverage over Fox, threatening to go make that film if the studio didn’t agree to his terms. They didn’t, and Reynolds regretted Green Lantern ever since.
He Has An Adamantium Skeleton
The comic book version of Deadpool does not have an adamantium skeleton. The solo film version of Deadpool does not have an adamantium skeleton, either. There’s a reason for that. The Merc with the Mouth has an advanced healing factor derived from Wolverine’s powers, but that’s where those similarities end. When William Stryker pooled a bunch of mutants’ powers into Wade Wilson in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, he went ahead and gave Deadpool an adamantium skeleton.
This makes everything in the final battle of the film completely impossible. The Boss Fight between Logan and Wade ends with Deadpool scattered around in a bunch of pieces. His hand reached for his face. His face was breathing for no reason. Yet his bones were made up of one of the strongest, if not the strongest material in that universe. Ignoring any and all real-world science, if the film wanted to be true to its own universe, Deadpool should have been just fine after his fall.
He Ages Slower
Teleportation was not the only ability from John Wraith “pooled” into the “Merc without a Mouth.” Wraith also possessed the ability to age slower than normal, but the precise rate at which he aged was not stated. Deadpool already began to age slower because of Wolverine’s healing factor that was “pooled” into him, but combined with John Wraith’s abilities he should age even slower than Logan.
The Weapon XI version of Deadpool was overpowered, but in some of the most useless ways possible. Aging slower, the misused technopathy, and the blades from his arms are all useful powers, but the way Fox had used the character rendered most of them useless.
The Director Hated The Character
Not all the execs who worked on the film agreed with the revisions made to this iconic character. Director Gavin Hood hated his own version of Deadpool, too. Hood didn’t want to come straight out and blame the studio for the failed version of Deadpool, but that’s the basic impression he gave off. During an interview with The Independent, the director blamed the PG-13 rating for the watered down Deadpool before thanking his interviewer when the studio heads were given responsibility for the unpopular changes.
The director claimed the studio had merely been testing the waters with Deadpool to see how he would be received by the audience. It’s obvious Fox would have gotten better results had it created a character that people actually liked. Hood commended Reynolds for returning Deadpool to his foul-mouthed glory. Hood said he believed that the R-rating helped Deadpool to become what it needed to be without “torturing” the source material.
Leaked Footage Angered Fans
When the standalone Deadpool film kept getting the runaround from Fox, somebody who may or may not have been Ryan Reynolds leaked some test footage. Fans were immediately pumped for the sarcastic, Gwen Stefani-singing, red spandex-wearing hero, and demanded the full film to be given the green light. This wasn’t the first time that Deadpool footage had been leaked, but it was the first time Fox listened to Wade Wilson’s fans.
X-Men Origins: Wolverine also leaked online a full month and a half before the film was supposed to be released. The outrage was so intense that studio execs begged Reynolds to get on a plane and come fix the end of the movie. They didn’t have the time or budget to actually redo everything about Deadpool. It was too late for that. Reynolds was understandably frustrated and felt there was no point to fix the ending if they couldn’t fix the entire character.
His Teleportation Was Technically Stronger Than Nightcrawler’s
Kurt Wagner had an uncanny teleportation ability that consistently made him an asset to the X-Men team. However, there was one huge downside to Nightcrawler’s ability: he had to travel through a Hell dimension in order to use them. Whenever Nightcrawler teleports from one spot to another, even if he’s just traveling across one room, he makes a quick stop in the Brimstone Dimension first. For the most part, Nightcrawler only teleports short distances, as longer jaunts can become exhausting and take their toll on the mutant.
This made Wade Wilson’s teleportation powers in X-Men Origins: Wolverine promising. Having garnered the ability from John Wraith, Deadpool’s new teleportation power would work similarly to Wraith’s. Wraith could teleport farther distances than Nightcrawler, essentially to any given location in the world. In theory, he could have teleported in and out of literally any hideout in a matter of seconds.
