Despite all the raunchy jokes, club drugs, buckets of blood and meta-punchlines, ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ might be the most sentimental movie of the summer. Hollywood insiders and superhero movie fans were stunned to discover that last weekend’s Marvel blockbuster essentially amounts to a big, snarling “Steel Magnolias” send-off to 20th Century Fox.
After all, it was at that defunct studio, founded in 1935 and sold by Rupert Murdoch to Disney in 2019, that “Deadpool” first appeared on screen in a skin-tight bondage suit and pistols. It’s also where two decades of Marvel films were made, most notably the “X-Men” series, which catapulted Hugh Jackman to stardom. These characters first appeared in Marvel Comics, but were licensed by Fox, allowing them to operate outside the Marvel Cinematic Universe (the name for Disney’s film and TV Marvel adaptations). The merger with Disney changed all that.
Prominent amid the slapstick violence and fourth wall-breaking film, “Deadpool & Wolverine” is a heartfelt tribute to the creatives who powered Fox’s Marvel machine. On a desert set meant to spoof ‘Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga’, a skyscraper-sized statue of the 20th Century Fox logo is seen half-buried in the sand (it’s all very ‘Ozymandias’, at least if Shelley was more concerned with studio lots than pharaonic monuments).
And to honor the spandex heroes whose cinematic exploits were cut short by corporate mergers or declining box office returns, director Shawn Levy recruited a who’s who of discarded Marvel characters — including Jennifer Garner’s Elektra, Chris Evans’ Human Torch (from ‘Fantastic Four ‘) and Wesley Snipes’ Blade – for cameos. This leftovers package also features Channing Tatum as Gambit, a supernatural card shark whose biggest opponent was Fox’s Green Light Committee. That project spent 10 years in development hell without seeing a movie. But head to the waterworks during the end credits of “Deadpool & Wolverine,” when a montage of behind-the-scenes footage from this library of titles plays during Green Day’s “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life).” And that look back resonates strongly with many filmmakers, actors and executives of those projects, who didn’t expect to be completely choked up while watching a bawdy adventure.
Simon Kinberg, a prolific writer-director from the Fox Marvel world and executive producer of the “Deadpool” franchise, tells Variety that “all those guys grew up together in and around Fox movies and later Marvel Fox movies. I can’t imagine that that particular group isn’t concerned with the lineage of the films they leave behind.”
While fans may carry a torch for many of these films, even their biggest admirers will likely admit that quality control wasn’t one of Fox’s superpowers. After all, for every critical success like “X2” or “Logan,” there’s a much less beloved entry in the studio’s universe of costumed heroes — the less said about “Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer,” the better.
Even more surprising is that a creative force like Reynolds — with a blank check from Disney and Marvel — would use his first appearance in the MCU to praise 20th Century Fox, which was swallowed whole by Disney five years ago. That $71.3 billion transaction may have made the Murdoch family very wealthy, but it left Hollywood with one less studio to produce films and cut thousands of jobs. But beyond the relative merits of mergers and acquisitions, Reynolds seemed to sense that fans needed to close a chapter before a new one could be written.
“There is a lot of confidence in Ryan, who is also a brilliant marketer. He has a deep understanding of the audience for these R-rated superhero movies,” says Kinberg of Reynolds, who now holds the record for the biggest opening weekend of all time for an R-rated movie in the U.S. and the rest of the world. world.
20th Century Fox released Marvel movies at an impressive clip for two decades, with a new installment for the “X-Men” franchise on average every two to three years (with plenty of spinoffs in between). The studio gave us indelible culture icons, with Jackman’s Wolverine having the most staying power. But Halle Berry’s Storm, Patrick Stewart’s Professor
However, it wasn’t always a victory march, with critics or at the box office. Yes, “X-Men” started in 2000 with an 82% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a gross of $300 million on a budget of $75 million. But Ben Affleck’s Daredevil and Garner’s Elektra (who had audiences screaming for her cameo in “Deadpool & Wolverine”) sputtered out in the early years. An early Fantastic Four effort with Evans and Jessica Alba yielded two films with decent returns, but a 2015 reboot with an entirely new cast was a financial disaster. Marvel will try again with 2025’s ‘Fantastic Four: First Steps’, this time with the help of Pedro Pascal and Vanessa Kirby to finally deliver a super-team movie that lives up to the adjective in the name.
Reynolds himself embraced the mixed track record after last weekend’s blockbuster opening, posting on social media that the film was a “farewell to a place and an era that literally made us.” We are forever grateful for the fun, weird, uneven and risky world of 20th Century Fox.”
