The One Joke Marvel Made Deadpool and Wolverine Cut Was a Dig at Mickey Mouse, Plus a Sequel Update

The one joke Marvel Studios made Ryan Reynolds cut from Deadpool and Wolverine has been revealed, and it was a crude dig at Disney and Mickey Mouse. To be honest, I'm not surprised at all that Marvel Studios and Kevin Feige said you can have the rest of this, but you can't have this one.

Later in this piece I'll also get into the reports that Marvel Studios was eyeing a Deadpool and Wolverine 2 for the future of its slate and the Mutant Saga, along with my thoughts on where rated R films fit at Marvel.

The rumoured rift between Ryan Reynolds and Kevin Feige never had any validity

In about the six months leading up to Deadpool and Wolverine, a lot of content floated around claiming there was a huge rift between Ryan Reynolds and Kevin Feige. The story went that everything was bad behind the scenes because of how much Marvel was making them take out, and because of the jokes and digs at Disney that Reynolds supposedly wasn't allowed to include.

None of that had any validity at all. As it turned out, it was confirmed right before the movie's release that there was really only one joke from the script Reynolds wrote that he wasn't allowed to keep. Now we finally know what that one joke was.

The cut Deadpool joke took aim at Disney being cheap

The scene revolves around Deadpool hoping for a certain mutant to turn up. He says: "wait is it Magneto dear sweet God in heaven let it be Magneto." When he is told that the character is dead, Deadpool replies that they can't even afford one more X-Men, adding: "Disney is so cheap I can barely breathe with all this Mickey Mouse in my throat."

It's funny that, of all the material that ended up making it into the final cut of the film, that was the one where Marvel and Disney drew the line. Essentially they said no, we're not letting you talk about Mickey that way.

Marvel let Reynolds make Deadpool and Wolverine his way, and it paid off

The bigger picture is that Marvel Studios allowed Ryan Reynolds to make Deadpool and Wolverine in the image of the first two Deadpool movies. The film basically retained everything it needed to so that it didn't feel like it was under the thumb of Marvel and Disney. Despite all of those fake rumours and reports of a huge rift, they let him do his thing.

It turned out to be a huge success for Marvel, both with the fans and at the box office. That really paved the way for Marvel to feel comfortable making rated R and adult aimed content, for Blade and for other projects down the road. If anything, it fulfilled the whole Marvel Jesus prophecy joke, maybe in a way they didn't intend, because here was the first rated R MCU film absolutely crushing it on all levels.

So if there are a couple of things Marvel doesn't want to let them include, like a joke basically defiling Mickey Mouse, at the end of the day it's not going to make or break the film. Marvel has its rules, but they're not enough to really hold back what Deadpool needs to be as a film, and that's what makes the future more exciting.

Deadpool and Wolverine 2 was reportedly being looked at for after Avengers: Secret Wars

Industry insider DanielRPK corroborated in his latest big Marvel update that Marvel was looking to do a Deadpool and Wolverine 2. According to that report, it would come in the future of the MCU after Avengers: Secret Wars and would of course have Hugh Jackman back as Wolverine alongside Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool.

At the time of writing, the expectation was that we would see these characters again before then, if not a lot in Doomsday, then for sure in Secret Wars, which was immediately reported. One of the rumoured candidates offered the job of directing Secret Wars, or Avengers 5, was Shawn Levy, because he knows what to do with Deadpool as a character and could branch out in that way.

Deadpool and Wolverine belong in the Avengers ensemble

Remember that Guardians of the Galaxy had a very distinct and very different tone from the rest of the Avengers, and Marvel found a way to make that work. I am confident that having Deadpool and Wolverine as part of the ensemble cast, even with Deadpool occasionally breaking the wall, is not going to be enough to detract from all of the upside and fan favour.

You have to involve your most important IP in the movies, and Deadpool and Wolverine performed the best outside of, say, Spider-Man: No Way Home and a handful of others throughout Phase Four and Phase Five. If you're going to include anyone, Deadpool and Wolverine should be first on the list. Marvel knows that, and that's why a Deadpool and Wolverine 2 was also being talked about for the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Marvel's core audience is old enough for rated R movies

I don't know how many times I've said it, but a majority of the people who are still heavily invested in the Marvel Cinematic Universe are well over the age of being able to watch rated R movies. So it's kind of curious to me who Marvel thinks its audience is, and who it's keeping intact by maybe trying to keep things PG-13.

Of course, Marvel wants kids to be able to come to these movies for major franchises like the Avengers. It'll be interesting to see what Deadpool's dialogue and actions look like in that context when it comes to the Avengers films. But there are a lot of other characters, scenes and moments where rated R is called for, especially for characters like The Punisher.

I expected Daredevil and Blade to succeed by embracing visceral violence

That's why I expected Daredevil to be a huge success. Everybody involved had promised it would be extremely violent, at least as violent as the Netflix series, and in some cases, according to Vincent D'Onofrio, they pushed it even further. Daredevil: Born Again was indeed violent as promised. I also said Blade would be a huge success if Marvel embraced rated R, as would its other adult projects.

It's just something different that takes Marvel movies to the next level of realism. You can watch Captain America: The Winter Soldier or Avengers: Age of Ultron and in all of those fight scenes there's no blood anywhere in sight. Your brain kind of fills in the blanks and it's believable, but not as believable as some of this visceral violence.

With movies like Terrifier and all the horror films out there that go way past the point of what you'd ever need for a Marvel movie, I just don't think the occasional rated R film would be a detriment to Disney, Marvel or the brand as a whole, if they amped it up and gave us, say, one every other year.

Was Marvel right to cut the Mickey Mouse joke, and should the studio be making more rated R films?