Deadpool 2

2016’s ‘Deadpool’ was a surprise smash and considering it’s micro-budget, one of the most profitable superhero movies on record.  Fans loved the off the wall mixture of extreme violence and crude, explicit humor and the fact that the film lampooned the rest of the comic book movie genre.

So obviously, fans were immediately anticipating the sequel. The excitement was only notched up with the reveal that the second installment would introduce Cable (Josh Brolin) and Domino (Zazie Beetz).  The ad campaign for ‘Deadpool 2’ has also been extremely well-received, with a Thanksgiving Norman Rockwell-homage and a racy Bob Ross-inspired short video.  But there may be trouble in paradise.  Word has it… the sequel isn’t very good.

Fox apparently held a test screening and the audience reaction was not good.  Some viewers took to Twitter to break the bad news, but Fox demanded the tweets be removed, but some of them were saved by others and some of the comments were not deleted.  Now take this with a HUGE GRAIN OF SALT but here are some of the reactions:

  • “Fox screened Deadpool 2 tonight (not Dark Phoenix again) and….yikes! First reaction wasn’t what I expected to hear.”
  • I have. From my perspective, with what I’ve heard, they’ve made a HUGE, ALIEN 3 blunder with the story. But I haven’t seen it. Love the first film. https://t.co/8aGDMg9aWS  — Robert Meyer Burnett (@BurnettRM) March 11, 2018
  • I have heard its testing really poorly. They are stunned with what the screening audiences are saying. I know people don’t say much about it but, you CANNOT underestimate Tim Millers contribution to getting Deadpool made. He was 1/2 the equation.  — Mike Kalinowski (@MikeKalinowski) March 11, 2018

A lot of this sounds like hearsay.  A lot of “I’ve heard…”  But Mike Kalinowski’s comment about Tim Miller sounds like it could be very accurate.  Director Miller worked closely with Ryan Reynolds to craft the first movie, a scrappy effort which was, as stated, made on a tiny budget.  Last October, Miller departed the sequel due to “creative differences” with rumors swirling that he and Reynolds were not seeing eye to eye on the direction of the follow up.  David Leitch (‘Atomic Blonde’, ‘John Wick’) helmed the sequel.

Is the magic gone?  Well, the good (ish) thing is that test screenings are used to try and improve a movie before its release.  ‘Deadpool 2’ comes out on May 18, so there is probably no time to do reshoots, but maybe the film can be re-edited in a way that delivers a more satisfying end product.  Also test screenings don’t always reflect how well general audiences will react.  Test audiences tweeting that ‘Batman V Superman’ was the greatest superhero movie of all time.  ‘Suicide Squad’ got a standing ovation.  And viewers at these test screenings don’t know what movie they are going to see ahead of time.  There were probably loads of folks in attendance that aren’t ‘Deadpool’ or comic book movie fans.

Once again, take these reactions with a grain of salt.

Source: Screen Geek