The friendly feud between Deadpool 2 and DC Films continues.
It all began in the “Deadpool, Meet Cable” teaser trailer that debuted at the beginning of February. The trailer starts like any action movie trailer, until we get to a shot of what is supposed to be Cable’s metallic arm. Instead of the cybernetic appendage, we see the green screen sleeve that Josh Brolin wore during filming.
This is where the trailer pauses and we hear Ryan Reynolds’s voiceover as Deadpool say “Why are the visual effects not done!? It’s a metal arm! It’s not like we’re trying to remove a mustache!”
Obviously a jab at WB and DC’s Justice League, that spent millions of dollars on reshoots during which Superman actor Henry Cavill was forced to film with a mustache due to a contractual obligation to Paramount and Mission Impossible. This forced WB to spend even more money on digitally removing it to not great results.
Deadpool 2 continued its digs at DC in the final trailer that dropped this week. In the trailer, during a fight between Cable and Deadpool, Cable called the Merc with a Mouth a “Clown dressed up as a sex toy.” Deadpool responded, “So dark…you sure you’re not from the DC Universe?”
This is, of course, alluding to the fact that DC films, especially in the Zack Snyder era, are extremely dark films for the sake of being dark compared to Marvel.
Deadpool making fun of DC isn’t just from Deadpool 2. He was doing it since his first film in 2016. In the film, before Wade Wilson was about to go through the treatment that’ll give him his abilities, he asked for the superhero suit not to be “Green…or animated!” This is a reference to Ryan Reynolds’s disaster of a superhero film Green Lantern, in which he starred as Hal Jordan and the filmmakers decided to make his superhero suit 100% CGI.
Now it seems like DC is ready to fight back a little through social media. After the last Deadpool 2 trailer dropped, the Twitter for Teen Titans Go! To The Movies tweeted “Hey @VancityReynolds, caught your new @deadpoolmovie trailer. Never forget – before you became a @Marvel character, you were a part of the @DCComics universe.”
The tweet included a GIF of John Stewart’s Green Lantern saying “There was a Green Lantern movie…but we don’t talk about that.”
Of course, this is all in good fun. I’m sure that they’re not trying to create a war between Marvel and DC and given Deadpool’s history of breaking the fourth wall, he’s the perfect character to do these kinds of things in a film.
Ryan Reynolds was technically with Marvel before he was ever with DC, however. Before his failed attempt at Green Lantern, he had a failed attempt at Deadpool in the terrible X-Men Origins: Wolverine, a film he also pokes fun at in his redemptive Deadpool. And even before that he was in Blade: Trinity. After so many horrible attempts (not his own fault) at superhero movies, it’s good to see Reynolds finally hitting his stride.
Although I am a Batman and DC fan first and foremost, I do love what Marvel has been doing on film and am looking forward to the Merc with a Mouth’s sequel. What about you?