How A Studio Note Frightened The ‘Deadpool’ Director And Almost Ruined The Movie

If Wade Winston Wilson was a real person, he’d spend most of his time looking at Deadpool‘s Box Office Mojo page, and stroking his chimichanga, if you catch my drift. The numbers are staggering: Highest-grossing R-rated film ever. Eighth highest grossing comic book adaptation ever. Highest grossing “Revenge” film ever. Deadpool was expected to be a hit, but not a cultural sensation that’s saving other movies. Even producer Simon Kinberg, who co-wrote the upcoming X-Men: Apocalypse, was “shocked” by its success.

The creative team behind 20th Century Fox’s Deadpool were as shocked by the film’s global success as the rest of the industry.

“There was certainly a lot of anxiety, neuroses, and Judaism involved,” joked Kinberg. Perhaps because the film had languished so long awaiting a green light, Kinberg didn’t see the blockbuster potential, even when Deadpool tested higher than most Fox films. (Via)

$358 million later, Kinberg can look back and laugh. As can director Tim Miller, who revealed the “studio note that frightened” him the most. It read, “We should make this linear.” Miller disagreed. “The story was always this fractured narrative,” he said, “and to be honest, it’s a pretty simple story. To tell it linearly would not make that exciting of a movie.” A linear version was cut, but obviously, 20th Century Fox went with the “fractured narrative,” which, I’d argue, was a big part of Deadpool‘s success.

Imagine if the film had started with Wade meeting Vanessa and getting cancer and Ajax torturing him, and then went to the dick and sex jokes. It would be a tonal mishmash, not to mention emotionally draining with all the cancer and torture talk. With the non-linear editing, act two starts before act one, and it’s thrilling. No one cares about Wade’s origin story — we were there to see Deadpool, something Miller was fully aware of. I don’t think he, and the rest of the creative team, will be questioned for Deadpool 2.