Since July 24, 2024, cinemas have been shaking in this country. Deadpool & Wolverine brings the two Marvel superheroes into the MCU for the first time and celebrates this debut with an absolute cameo fireworks display. In order to keep the many surprises secret in advance, at times even a particularly drastic measure in the room: The whole film was not supposed to be released as a Marvel film.
Deadpool & Wolverine should be disguised as the trash film Alpha Cop
In the talk show Hot Ones, Deadpool star Ryan Reynolds revealed for the first time the crazy release idea for the new Marvel blockbuster. There were plans to a fake film with him and Hugh Jackman, which only reveals itself as an MCU spectacle after a few minutes of running time:
The original idea for this film was to make a fake movie called Alpha Cop that was intentionally bad… It was about two guys who share a brain and together make the perfect cop. The poster says ‘Alpha Cop: two cops, one brain, big balls‘ It was meant to sound awful on purpose.
Yes, Alpha Cop sounds awful, but also like B-movie trash that could be really fun.
Disney
Hugh Jackman and Ryan Reynolds as sci-fi cops? Yes, please!
Unfortunately, Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman did not shoot a complete fake film, but only a few scenes:
About ten people in America would see this film on opening weekend, and five minutes into the film, the Marvel logo would appear and it would actually be called Deadpool & Wolverine.
Even though it is a shame about the completely insane sci-fi buddy cop idea, it was ultimately the better decision to quickly abandon this idea. The Alpha Cop plan could easily have backfired. In order to preserve the surprise, the “real” film would have had to be shot completely in studios, with no public access. The numerous Spoiler set photos and leaks from the Deadpool & Wolverine filming proved this.
More about Deadpool & Wolverine:
Films with surprise releases: Deadpool & Wolverine would have been hurt
How such film surprises can work, in the past two films proven. The found footage horror Blair Witch was announced in advance with fake trailers and posters under the title The Woods. It was not until the premiere at Comic-Con 2016 that the bombshell dropped.
The fake trailer for The Woods aka Blair Witch:
The Woods – Trailer (English) HD
The sci-fi sequel The Cloverfield Paradox took a similar direction. Although the production was known, it was unclear for a long time when and how the film would be released. In February 2018, the surprise came at Super Bowl LII: an unexpected trailer announced the immediate release of the film on Netflix.
Whether the unusual release surprises really helped the respective films can only be speculated. In the case of Deadpool & Wolverine, Marvel Studios and Disney huge box office losses for the important opening weekend.
For a gag with minimal half-life the financial risk would certainly have been too high for Disney. Especially in view of the recent weak film releases from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it was more important to position Deadpool & Wolverine as the biggest possible event in the cinemas and to build up enormous hype in advance. And the film succeeded in doing that. We still want to see the potential trash grenade Alpha Cop with Jackman and Reynolds.