When Shawn Levy’s Deadpool & Wolverine roared into theaters, the movie was as much a love letter to the 20th Century Fox era of comic book movies as it was an extension of the ongoing MCU. We were able to see the return of classic characters like Elektra (Jennifer Garner) and Blade (Wesley Snipes) – which might have indirectly led to the new Blade being delayed – and Chris Evans got a chance to play Johnny Storm one more time before Marvel reboots The Fantastic Four. But Evans also had a foul-mouthed end credits scene in Deadpool & Wolverine, and the film’s editors broke down how that incredibly funny sequence came together.
Hopefully if you are reading this story, you already have seen Deadpool & Wolverine, and know that in the movie’s last end-credits scene, Johnny Storm (Chris Evans) confesses to actually saying all of those horrible things about Cassandra Nova (Emma Corrin). For the bulk of the film, we thought Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) was lying to sell Johnny out with Cassandra. But according to film editors Dean Zimmerman and Shane Reid, Evans was always more than game to embrace this bonkers finale.
We spoke with Zimmerman and Reid about their work on Deadpool & Wolverine, which currently is available on Digital and Blu-ray. When it came to that last Evans scene, Zimmerman told us:
I specifically remember when it happened. We were shooting on that New York Street. Chris came to the set. He walked onto the New York Street just to come say hi. We had met for the first time, and were sitting in the barber’s shop on the New York Street. And Ryan literally was like, ‘Hey Chris, I have this idea for this coda at the end. You say some of the dialogue here, but this is what you actually say, that I'm gonna repeat later on. Would you be willing to do it?’ He goes, ‘I'm game for whatever you want me to do.’ And he literally got the pages that day! Chris read them, memorized them. It was like one take. He did it a few times, and that was it. There were three cameras on it, and that was it.
It blows my mind how a lot of the Deadpool movies come together in the moment. Granted, there’s intense work and preparation put into things like the “Bye Bye Bye” opening sequence. But Ryan Reynolds’ improvisational skills lead to jokes and riffs being added, quite often right up until the movie is delivered to theaters.
As Zimmerman explained to CinemaBlend:
It's one of those things where, it's Ryan's relationship, and the trust that all these people had in him to elevate them to a different level, and a new level as well. Just the trust that everyone had in him, and what he was doing as the writer of it. It couldn't have been more organic. It was kind of like, ‘Yep, of course this is what we're going to do.’ And it was brilliant. It turned out so great.
The Chris Evans moments in Deadpool and Wolverine are a big part of the reason why we have added this Blu-ray to our MCU collection. We have no clue when we might be seeing more stories from the Deadpool universe, so we have to appreciate the ones that we have, while we have them.
