Deadpool & Wolverine's Three Most Brutal MCU Jokes Came Straight From Ryan Reynolds

When "Deadpool & Wolverine" first arrived, it tore the /Film team apart. Some saw it as a fun time at the movies while others saw it as a desecration of film that almost caused Martin Scorsese to gently disintegrate into the wind, as if having been snapped out of existence by Thanos himself. However you feel about it, "Deadpool & Wolverine" is absolutely obliterating the box office. Why? Because it brought back Hugh Jackman as Logan/Wolverine, has a ton of cameos, and because as we are so often reminded, Ryan Reynolds is a marketing genius.

You might have heard this statement repeated ad nauseum in an age where Reynolds has essentially become the Taylor Swift of actors. Not content with being a major movie star, the man is now a bonafide business magnate, and has charmed his way into the hearts of the global populace by selling us gin, discount mobile network providers, buying a Welsh football team, and launching a successful Fox docuseries based around the fact he bought a Welsh football team.

Now, you can add "reversing the fortunes of the beleaguered Marvel Cinematic Universe" to that list. How did he do it? By making fun of the MCU, of course. And as a writer, Reynolds had a direct hand in the film's three most brutal Marvel jokes.

The "genius" part of the whole "Ryan Reynolds is a marketing genius" appears to refer to the fact that Reynolds knows that you know his face, and has therefore chosen to use it to sell all of his products — a tactic he very much used in the pursuit of those sweet box office returns for "Deadpool & Wolverine." But in order for this personality-led marketing tactic to work, Reynolds needs you to like him. The best description of the guy I've yet seen is that he's "a thoroughly normal man who wants to be seen as wacky," which no doubt drew him to the character of Deadpool, and helped him inhabit Rob Liefeld's Merc with a Mouth better than perhaps any other major star could. With "Deadpool & Wolverine," though, Reynolds found the most serendipitously synergistic project yet, as Marvel Studios also found itself in the position of needing people to like it.

More specifically, Marvel head honcho Kevin Feige needed people to once again like his flailing Marvel Cinematic Universe after a historic post-"Avengers: Endgame" run of middling streaming shows and forgettable movies that gave us far too much of the MCU and almost killed the whole enterprise. Enter: Ryan Reynolds. Who better to sway public perception of the ubiquitous MCU than the guy who excels at making people like him despite being everywhere all the time? But he wasn't going to do it by being nice about Marvel. No, Reynolds knew the key to turning those decreasing box office profits around was to make light of the whole thing.

If there's any way to curry favor for your embattled behemoth of a blockbuster franchise, it's making Jamie Lee Curtis apologize for saying something a bit negative about its recent missteps. Thankfully, Ryan Reynolds was there with the perfect response to Curtis' observation that we are currently in phase "Bad" of the MCU. The actor once again came to the rescue by tweeting "Wait, is everyone expected to apologize for slamming Marvel post-Endgame?" This was a reference to the fact that Deadpool didn't hold back on pointing out Feige's foibles throughout "Deadpool & Wolverine," and according to Shawn Levy, that was all Reynolds. As the director told Entertainment Weekly:

"Certainly Deadpool turning to Wolverine and saying, 'Welcome to the MCU. By the way, you're joining at a bit of a low point.' That was Ryan's inspiration. Similarly, his speech to the Deadpool Corps. about miss after miss after miss: 'Let's just take the L and move on.' And then Ryan improvising his Nicepool in response to his improvisation, 'I think it's been steadily uphill since Endgame.' Those are two of probably a thousand inspired adds."

It seems Reynolds felt free to give the MCU a good grilling whenever he felt like it during filming of "Deadpool & Wolverine." It's especially impressive to hear that the big rant about the multiverse era being "miss after miss" was an impromptu addition, as it's a fairly significant beat in the film that feels engineered as an exculpatory moment for Marvel. The result of all this is an odd production that simultaneously wants you to get back onboard with the MCU and also laugh along at how terrible it's all been. Based on the fact that "Deadpool & Wolverine" is smashing box office records, however, I'd say it worked.

While some, such as /Film's Witney Seibold, view "Deadpool & Wolverine" as "a soulless act of autofellatio" and "a prayer to corporate onanism," the movie isn't entirely without redeeming qualities. One example is Hugh Jackman himself, who seemingly hasn't missed a step since last playing Wolverine in 2017's "Logan" — a film that was, evidently, a hugely emotional experience to make. It's not all that surprising, then, that the actor got a bit choked up while shooting "Deadpool & Wolverine," with Shawn Levy revealing that one such moment occurred as the result of the production's widespread improv. The director told EW:

"One other one that's less comedic but really defined so much in the movie: We were shooting the scene where Wolverine is having compassion for Cassandra Nova. The scripted line was, 'I'm wearing the suit, that means I'm an X-Man.' While we were filming the take, I remembered what Deadpool had said in the diner. So I called out during the take to Hugh from behind the camera. Hugh got very choked up and repeated a line after me, and that ended up defining the tone of that scene."

So there ya go. It's not all about selling you the idea that the MCU is still good, actually. Some of it's about making Hugh Jackman cry. Time will tell if "Deadpool & Wolverine" really has turned things around for Kevin Feige and company, but either way, I have a feeling we're going to be seeing a heck of a lot more of Ryan Reynolds in its future — something I'm sure the man himself couldn't be happier about.