Deadpool 2 opens today. Did you know that? Did you glean that information from the barrage of marketing and Ryan-Reynolds-In-Costume appearances such as his stop at The Late Show with Stephen Colbert? Seriously, no one markets a blockbuster better than the Deadpool team—although this time their flow keeps getting interrupted by Solo—and yesterday they released another viral-engineered video, this time poking fun at Marvel’s ten-year anniversary video. The Deadpool “anniversary” marks such lowlights as the character’s first appearance in X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Reynold’s catastrophic stint as Green Lantern. It also mentions the allegedly accidental leak of test footage in 2015, the response to which prompted Fox to finally greenlight the movie. Honestly, that remains the Deadpool team’s master stroke (allegedly).
As per usual and despite interference from Solo, the Deadpool 2 marketing push has been meticulous. They’ve been running TV spots citing Deadpool 2 as the “second biggest” movie of the summer, tacitly and cheekily ceding that nothing is topping Avengers: Infinity War this summer, and now this anniversary video, mocking the self-importance of Marvel’s ten-year celebration. I highly doubt anyone at Marvel is offended, but thanks to the pending merger between Disney and Fox, it takes on the flavor of a student provoking his teacher. Deadpool is probably going to belong to Disney within the next year or so, and no one knows what will happen to Deadpool after that, especially since the current R-rated incarnation doesn’t really jive with the family-friendly MCU. If you like Deadpool, best to enjoy him while you can. Team Deadpool certainly isn’t leaving anything on the table.
Also, remember Peter, the breakout star of the trailer? He’s got his own Twitter and LinkedIn. (Peter is played by comedian Rob Delaney and I cannot BELIEVE I didn’t recognize him in the trailer, I should be punished for this infraction.) Peter is a damn jewel and Team Deadpool knows it. Also, I truly, deeply believe the Disney-Fox merger is fundamentally bad for the industry, but…we could get a Peter-Darryl crossover, which is the ONLY superhero crossover I care about.
