Deadpool
Wade Wilson
Movie · Phase 5
Deadpool & Wolverine
2024 · 128 min
Wade Wilson has given up the suit, sells used cars badly and is dragged in by the TVA, who inform him his universe is dying because its anchor being — Logan — is dead. His fix is to go shopping…
The Multiverse SagaDisney+78%Released
The story
Wade Wilson has given up the suit, sells used cars badly and is dragged in by the TVA, who inform him his universe is dying because its anchor being — Logan — is dead. His fix is to go shopping through the multiverse for a replacement Wolverine, and he picks the worst one available.
The two of them get dumped in the Void, where Cassandra Nova rules a scrapyard of discarded franchises, and the film becomes a wake for twenty-four years of Fox's Marvel films. It is a two-hour joke about corporate acquisition that is also, unexpectedly, sincere about what those movies meant.
Key facts
- Release date
- 26 Jul 2024
- Status
- Released
- Phase
- Phase 5
- Saga
- The Multiverse Saga
- Runtime
- 128 min
- Certificate
- R
- Director
- Shawn Levy
- Writers
- Ryan Reynolds, Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick, Zeb Wells, Shawn Levy
- Streaming
- Disney+
- Timeline placement
- 2024 in Earth-10005, plus the Void and the TVA outside time
Cast
| Actor | Role |
|---|---|
| Ryan Reynolds | Wade Wilson / Deadpool |
| Hugh Jackman | Logan / Wolverine |
| Emma Corrin | Cassandra Nova |
| Matthew Macfadyen | Mr. Paradox |
| Dafne Keen | Laura |
| Wesley Snipes | Blade |
Characters
Wolverine
James Howlett
Blade
Eric Brooks
Elektra
Elektra Natchios
The Punisher
Francis David "Frank" Castle (born Castiglione)
Human Torch
Jonathan Lowell Spencer Storm
Easter eggs
- Chris Evans returns not as Captain America but as Johnny Storm from 2005's Fantastic Four, and is skinned alive by Cassandra Nova.
- The Void's forgotten heroes include Wesley Snipes' Blade, Jennifer Garner's Elektra, Channing Tatum's never-made Gambit and Dafne Keen's Laura from Logan.
- Henry Cavill appears as a Wolverine variant in a comic-accurate brown-and-tan costume, credited as 'Cavillrine' in the marketing.
- Hugh Jackman finally wears the yellow-and-blue suit from the comics, twenty four years after refusing it in X-Men.
- The opening fight is staged in Logan's grave to NSYNC's 'Bye Bye Bye', using his adamantium skeleton as a weapon.
- Cassandra Nova is Charles Xavier's parasitic twin from Grant Morrison's New X-Men, and her design keeps the comic's shaved head.
- Ant-Man's giant skeleton lies across the Void's landscape and is used as a hideout, and a decayed 20th Century Fox logo sits half-buried in the sand.
- The end credits play real behind-the-scenes footage from the Fox X-Men films, including Jackman's 1999 screen test.
Trivia
- It is the first R-rated MCU film and the highest-grossing R-rated film in history.
- Hugh Jackman came out of Wolverine retirement seven years after Logan, announcing it in a video with Reynolds in September 2022.
- Ryan Reynolds co-wrote the script and has said the film was rewritten continuously through production.
- Disney permitted direct jokes about its own acquisition of Fox, about Kevin Feige and about the MCU's decline.
- Madonna personally approved the use of 'Like a Prayer' after Levy and Reynolds petitioned her, a rare clearance.
- Production shut down for months during the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike, and Jackman and Reynolds used the gap for additional training.
- It grossed $1.338 billion, the highest MCU total since Spider-Man: No Way Home and the only Marvel film to pass a billion since 2021.
Box office
- Budget
- $200 million
- Worldwide
- $1.338 billion
- Domestic
- $636.7 million
Reviews
Critics
78%
Deadpool & Wolverine's meta gags and gleeful vulgarity are held together by the chemistry of its two stars, making for a wildly entertaining, if narratively slight, romp.
The MarvelGossips verdict
A very funny film about intellectual property that also lands its emotional beats, which should not have been possible. Jackman gives the drunken failure Logan more interiority than the plot asks for, and Emma Corrin's Cassandra Nova is a genuine find. The nostalgia gets thick enough to wade through, and it is the only recent Marvel film that seems to know why anyone cares.
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Frequently asked
Do you need to watch the Fox X-Men films first?
Not to follow the plot, but roughly a third of the jokes and the entire emotional payload depend on them — especially Logan, X-Men Origins: Wolverine and the 2005 Fantastic Four.
Is Deadpool now part of the MCU?
Yes. The film ends with Wade and Logan in Earth-10005 under TVA sanction, and Ryan Reynolds has been widely reported for Avengers: Doomsday, though Marvel has not confirmed his casting.
How is Logan alive after Logan?
He is not the same Logan. This is a variant from another universe who failed to save his X-Men, recruited specifically because Wade needs an anchor being. The film treats the 2017 Logan's death as permanent and sacred.
Was this the first R-rated Marvel Studios film?
Yes. Disney allowed the R rating to preserve the Deadpool franchise's identity, and the film became the highest-grossing R-rated release ever, ahead of Joker.