This weekend, Deadpool and Wolverine may have the biggest box office opening of the year. But would it have had the same impact if Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine had been left out of the title? We’ll never know, because Ryan Reynolds changed the name of Deadpool 3 thanks to the immediate backlash against it.
Reynolds and Jackman appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live as guest hosts, via Yahoo Movies UK. During the interview segment, Reynolds revealed that the original title was Deadpool and Friend, which was a cheeky way to acknowledge Wolverine without saying his name. But once fans got wind of the title, the response was almost universally negative.
“The title leaked,” recalled Reynolds. “We looked at it and listened, and they hated that title. We were not feeling so good about that anymore.”
According to Reynolds, he had to insist on changing the title before Marvel eventually agreed to do it. “We were like, ‘No, we’re changing the title, I will never call this movie Deadpool and Friend.’ And they did it, they did it. They really changed the title,” said Reynolds.
Among the reasons Marvel was reluctant to change the name is that the studio had already started making promotional materials with the Deadpool and Friend title. That included 9,000 standees that were about to be shipped out to theaters.
Deadpool and Wolverine is now playing in theaters. As you may expect, it has a ton of Marvel cameos from the past 25 years of movies.
