Last month, Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool officially joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe, as he sat down with Taika Waititi’s Korg to do a trailer reaction for Free Guy, which both actors star in. Leave it to the Merc with the Mouth to demolish the fourth wall for his first outing within MCU territory, but it turns out that Reynolds also pitched an idea that would have seen Deadpool crossing over into Bambi’s corner of the Disney entertainment space. As one can imagine, things got quite weird.
Before Deadpool and Korg’s pairing came together, Ryan Reynolds envisioned a short film involving Deadpool speaking with the hunter who killed Bambi’s mother, only instead of chastising the gun-toting deer murderer, Wade Wilson praised him instead. As Reynolds explained to IGN:
I wanted to do a short film of Deadpool interrogating the hunter who killed Bambi's mom. But the whole gist of it is that Deadpool is actually just a huge fan. He's not interrogating — he just wants to know how he could be the most loathed Disney character in the history of Disney... and of course, Disney was like, 'well, I don't think that's ever going to happen.'
While I can’t blame Disney for not wanting to go forward with Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool/Bambi dark short film, I also would have liked to have seen how Wade Wilson fanning out over one of the most notorious villains in Disney history would have turned out. It’s doubtful Deadpool would go so far as to help this hunter kill Bambi’s mother if given the opportunity, but it’s not terribly surprising why he would have an appreciation for the character, even if only from a pop culture standpoint.
After Disney didn’t bite on this particular short film, Ryan Reynolds went back to the drawing board and came up with the idea for Deadpool and Korg to cross paths, and that time, the Mouse House was supportive. Still, I hope just because we’ll never see Deadpool shower the hunter with praise doesn’t mean we’ll never see the character engage in fourth wall-breaking shenanigans with non-Marvel Disney properties. Off the top of my head, it’d be great to see Deadpool turned into an action figure so he can roast the Toy Story characters on their literal level.
Unlike the rest of the X-Men property, Deadpool will not be rebooted now that he’s housed at Marvel Studios following Disney’s acquisition of 20th Century Fox. Furthermore, while Once Upon a Deadpool (an edited version of Deadpool 2) tested the waters for how a PG-13-rated Deadpool movie would be received, the plan is to keep the Merc with the Mouth in R-rated territory for Deadpool 3, which, unsurprisingly, will be set in the MCU. Bob’s Burgers duo Wendy Molyneux and Lizzie Molyneux-Logelin are writing the threequel’s script, but no other details have been revealed.
While we wait for more Deadpool-related news, whether it concerns his next movie or any other mini-crossovers, learn what else is on the MCU film slate with our upcoming Marvel movies guide.
