When the Deadpool sequel was looking for a Cable a lot of names were brought up. One of those names was Russell Crowe, but the overture suggesting he look at the part did not go well. Rob Liefeld recently spoke about the time he tweeted at Russell Crowe suggesting he read for the part. While the Twitter conversation had issues of its own, it turns out Liefeld got an earful from his own manager as well as some higher-ups at Fox for the move, as he'd accidentally insulted Russell Crowe. According to Liefeld...
One night before I went to bed, I didn't know Russell Crowe was on Twitter, and I stupidly tweeted to Russell Crowe -- not ever thinking he'd answer me -- and I go 'Hey Russell, you should read for Cable!' That didn't turn out very well, I got yelled at a lot, because I woke up, because he's in Australia, to Russell Crowe saying 'Read for it?' And my manager said 'Yeah, Russell Crowe doesn't read for parts. Rob, you kind of insulted him. I'm like 'I'm sorry. They just haven't picked Cable yet so I'm just putting it out there.' And then my phone rings, so some Fox people may or may not have yelled at me for an hour.
The first part of this story we had seen because we wrote about the tweets that went back and forth between Rob Liefeld and Russell Crowe back in February of 2017. We saw Liefeld apologize for his language at the time, realizing that suggesting Russell Crowe audition for a role was potentially insulting, but we hadn't heard about the rest of the story, which Liefeld revealed at the Amazing Comic-Con in Las Vegas (via Collider), which included Fox executives calling Liefeld to ask him exactly what in the blue hell he thought he was doing. This is the downside of social media being such a public and instantaneous method of communication.
Clearly, this was just a bad choice of phrase from a guy who, while he's been much more involved in Hollywood in recent years, isn't exactly a high powered big shot. If Rob Liefeld had suggested that Russell Crowe "meet with Fox" about playing Cable, he would essentially have been saying the same thing he tried to say before, but without using wording that had the potential to upset a guy who is known for having something of a short temper.
We'll never know if there was any real potential for Russell Crowe to play Cable. What we do know at this point is that it doesn't really matter because Josh Brolin was cast in the role and he knocked it out of the park. The right guy was clearly found for the part. Brolin probably didn't have to read for it either.
