Let's Talk About How The X-Force Team Was Handled in DEADPOOL 2
One of the things I was looking forward to seeing most in Deadpool 2 was the X-Force team in action! We got to see a little action from all of them in the trailers, but if you saw the movie, you know that things did not play out the way we thought they would. If you haven't seen the movie yet, I get into some spoiler territory as the director and writers of the film discuss how they handled these characters.
What the shit!? I was not expecting to see all those X-Force characters killed off so fast! The trailers made it seems like they were going to play a good-sized part in the story, but nope!
As much as I was looking forward to seeing the X-Force in action, I was totally ok with all of them dying the way they did. It was a hilarious and completely unexpected sequence of events that I can fully embrace.
The marketing team and rest of the cast and crew did a great job of playing us. During a recent interview at UPROXX, director David Leitch and writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick offer some insight on how they handled all this and made it happen.
David Leitch explains that the whole idea of killing off these characters right off the bat was to "fuck with the audience through Deadpool’s lens". Rhett Reese then says that they actually shot additional scenes with the X-Force team for trailers, and they did that just to throw the audience off:
"One of the things we did, we asked the actors if they’d be willing to shoot extra footage – that indicated they were in more of the movie than we were actually going to use them in. So, Terry Crews and Bill Skarsgård and these guys all went out back in front of a green screen and did a bunch of fighting with stuntmen. And you see it in trailers. You see Bedlam kicking ass. They all stayed an extra half day to do that. It was awesome."
Leitch went on to talk about how the whole thing is like a prank that only Deadpool would want to pull off:
"When they came to set we shot additional material that we knew we were just going to put in trailers that would never be in the movie. It was all about playing a prank like only Deadpool would do. Ryan is reaching out from the screen and tickling you."
They even considered making character posters and standees for all of the X-Force characters to push the prank even further, but felt that might be taking thing s a little too far. Wernick says, "The audience will be so mad."
I don't think they will, though! At least the true Deadpool fans won't be mad, because they have an understanding of the character and the kind of stuff that we find in his stories. However, it does make me wonder who will make up the X-Force team in the upcoming X-Force movie! I guess if they ever want to bring back any of these characters, they will find a way, "It’s just lazy writing, that’s all you need."
During the post-credits scene, Deadpool did go back in time to save one member of the X-Force team... Peter. I don't think we've seen the last of Peter. He was just such a fun character!
How did you all feel about how the X-Force being killed off the way they did so soon after being introduced?