Readers, be warned! This article contains MAJOR Deadpool 2 SPOILERS!
If you’ve seen Deadpool 2, you may have noticed that some footage from the trailers didn't make the final cut. Screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick revealed during a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly that those shots were actually never meant to be included in the movie.
Fans who were upset when their favorite heroes died in Avengers: Infinity War expected Deadpool 2 to lift their spirits, especially since it would apparently unite a number of mutants as the X-Force. But the movie had something else in store.
As the Merc with a Mouth (Ryan Reynolds) works to recruit mutants for the X-Force – including Domino, Shatterstar, Bedlam, and Zeitgeist – the unimaginable happens. As seen in the trailers, the mutants parachute from an aircraft, but things go very wrong as they attempt to land.
Paul Wernick told EW that they were worried about fan reaction to the immediate deaths of these long-beloved characters. He then explained their reasons for following through with the idea:
But our test with Deadpool is, if you couldn't do it in another superhero movie, then you SHOULD do it in Deadpool. It's like we're given the license to push the boundaries, and it's a boundary we definitely worry about. It's shocking and crazy and funny, and we built our whole marketing campaign around these guys. People are coming to the movie thinking these guys are gonna team up and be part of this X-Force, and in an instant they're all dead! Comedy trumped better judgment.
Rhett Reese said they shot some footage for exclusive use in the trailers so fans would think that the characters would play a major role in Deadpool 2. He added that actors Terry Crews and Lewis Tan were aware that the footage wouldn’t make it into the final cut:
What the actors were very gracious about doing was shooting footage they knew was not actually going to be in the movie so we could trick people into thinking they're in the movie longer than they actually were. If you watch the trailers and commercials, you'll watch Bedlam and Shatterstar out on the street kicking people's ass. It was all done with the knowledge that it wouldn't be in the movie.
Death is hardly ever permanent in superhero movies, but that may not apply to the characters who die in Deadpool 2. Deadpool has Cable's time-travel device by the end of the movie, and Wernick says that leaves the door wide open for these characters to show up in future projects.
