“You can't ignore the fact that the cultural dialogue is loud around the MCU in these films,” says Shawn Levy, director of Deadpool & Wolverine. He’s talking about the conversation around the MCU’s quality – specifically, the belief that the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been on the decline since 2019’s Avengers Endgame. “And it wouldn't be a Deadpool movie if we didn't take the cultural conversation and throw in our two cents.”
Those two cents are surprisingly spicy considering Deadpool & Wolverine is a proper Marvel Studios production, set (at least partially) in the MCU’s Sacred Timeline. During the film’s opening act, Deadpool cracks a joke about the MCU being at “a bit of a low point”, and later suggests that the ongoing Multiverse Saga has been “miss after miss.”
“Indeed that's one of a few lines, and moments, and jokes where we are commenting on the genre, even as we are hopefully contributing something meaningful to it,” explains Levy. “But also taking the piss out of it.”
That wish to meaningfully contribute suggests that Levy and his co-creators hope that Deadpool & Wolverine will be received far more fondly than recent duds Thor: Love and Thunder and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. And it really needs to for those aforementioned jokes to land; to successfully mock and commentate on the MCU quality conversation relies on Deadpool & Wolverine being a top-tier movie. You simply can’t make that joke in a Marvel film that sucks.
But while there’s clearly an understanding that Deadpool & Wolverine has to be good – and that the wider MCU is arguably in need of a rejuvenated spark – the project nor Levy himself has been positioned as any kind of franchise defibrillator. “[Ryan Reynolds, Hugh Jackman, and I are] not looking to save anything,” he tells us.
That’s not to say there wasn’t any pressure during development, though. “I know the love for Deadpool, I know the love for Logan,” says Levy. “I know it because I have it. I feel it. And so when Ryan asked me to do this movie with him, I knew that this movie had to be better than great, because Deadpool 1 and 2 were great. Logan is a masterpiece of a film.”
Levy’s answer to the pressure was to fold that love into the film, not just via his passion for filmmaking, but directly into the story itself. In one scene Mr. Paradox, the Time Variance Authority agent played by Succession’s Matthew Macfadyen, discusses the towering reputation of the Wolverine who died in 2017’s Logan. “It was really cathartic and I think quite interesting to integrate our real world thinking about the Marvel legacy and build it into how we wrote the plot,” says Levy.
Of course, Deadpool fans also expect laugh-out-loud, close-to-the-bone jokes, which brings us back to those MCU gags. “Every time we'd turn in a draft of the script, it would contain like a dozen or more jokes that were subversive, or making fun of, or certainly aware of Marvel and Disney and these genre and real world studio politics,” recalls Levy.
But the situation is different for this threequel. Previously, when the Deadpool movies were made by 20th Century Fox, they could easily get away with poking fun at the MCU ("zip it, Thanos!"). But Deadpool & Wolverine is made by Marvel Studios itself. Surely Kevin Feige, the head honcho of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, wouldn’t be okay with one of his own films making fun of his franchise’s misfortunes?
“[Kevin Feige’s] only rule was ‘Make it funny. If it's funny, and even if I'm the subject of the joke, go for it,’” explains Levy. “It was near absolute creative autonomy, and I think the movie has the audacious spirit it has because we were so empowered to go guns blazing.”
That freedom has allowed Levy and Reynolds to not only put together some jokes that they believe will land hard, but also craft a story that's both more interesting and more essential to fans than just a simple Deadpool sequel.
“We have been relentless in making every part of this movie great, and then going further,” he says. “Hopefully it’s a movie that's as funny as people want, it's as action packed as people want. But it's also got a warmth that may be its most subversive aspect, and the part of this movie that people are expecting the least.”
Comic book movie fans are famous (and often infamous) for being vocal about what they want. But often the MCU’s best results have come from projects they didn’t realise they wanted in the first place. Nobody was asking for a comedic take on Thor from the director of a few New Zealand indie films, but Taika Waititi’s Ragnarok instantly became an MCU classic. Levy notes that this element of surprise is rooted in one of the MCU’s greatest strengths: its genre diversity.
“I love that the MCU has always been able to contain sub-genre storytelling,” he says. “Ragnarok is wildly different to Black Panther, which is wildly different to Iron Man. I love the diversity of genre, the diversity of tone and voice, in Marvel movies.
“So I feel like the opportunity here [for] Deadpool & Wolverine [was] its iconic anti-heroes joined together for the first time, but it's also very much in the paradigm of those buddy cop movies, right?” he continues. “Those odd couple pairings where you have two characters completely ill-suited to each other who are forced together. And that's a great recipe for comedy, for conflict, for action, and ultimately for a story that has the possibility of redemption for both characters.”
Deadpool & Wolverine might deliver more than just redemption for its characters, though. If it proves to be a hit, it may be the film that redeems the MCU in the eyes of fans who feel like it’s dipped in quality. And if that’s the case, those fans will likely want to see Reynolds and Jackman back on their screens. All being well, could Deadpool & Wolverine be the start of something bigger for the MCU?
“I don't know what the future holds,” Levy confesses. “We very intentionally did not want to make a Marvel movie that is a commercial or a setup for the next Marvel movie. So we are not part of any phase that I know of. We acknowledge the antecedents, we respect the legacy that we're inheriting, but our goal was to do a self-contained story. As to whether these characters move on from here? Time will tell, but I'd sure love to see it and I'd also love to be a part of it.”
Recent reports claim that Infinity War and Endgame directors the Russo brothers are returning to Marvel Studios to helm the upcoming two Avengers projects. But there have also been rumours that Levy was at one point Marvel’s “top choice” to direct Avengers 5. Regardless of the truth of such rumours, it seems like Levy is far from done with the MCU.
“I have had the time of my life making this movie,” he told us. “I think Marvel and I are not done with each other, that I will say. As to the where and when, we'll see.”
From what we’ve seen already, Deadpool & Wolverine is on track to be the best Marvel film in half a decade. While Shawn Levy may not have been assigned any kind of mission to bring the MCU back from the brink, if Deadpool’s latest adventure can hit anywhere close to the highs of the Infinity Saga, then it will undoubtedly reignite interest and hope in Marvel’s long-running series. Shawn Levy may not believe himself to be the saviour of the MCU, but he may well be the shot in the arm Marvel needs.
Matt Purslow is IGN's Senior Features Editor.
