After a decade of production hell, Deadpool, the ‘anti-superhero’ comic book movie finally got its long awaited release last month - to a rousing response from cinema-goers. In the US, the film grossed a whopping $135 million (£93 million) on its opening weekend, becoming the biggest ever opening for an R-rated film. It also surpassed 50 Shades of Grey to have the biggest February opening ever. Safe to say, it’s probably going to be chalked up as a success already. Even Golden Girls actress Betty White loved it.
Much of the success has been attributed to Ryan Reynolds, who plays the foul-mouthed lead character in Deadpool. The self-referential and post-modern comic book flick has been praised for the subversion of the superhero cliches and embracing the vicious put-downs from the source material.
However, not all the jokes would stick. In fact, some of them had to be cut from the script according to the film’s writers Paul Wernick and Rett Rheese. The pair kept a whole bunch of zingers in the film, but speaking to Entertainment Weekly, they revealed that some foul-mouthed lines had to be cut. Here’s a few of the best the rejected quips, and you can read the full list over on Entertainment Weekly.
“It looks like Shrek took a shit on your shoulders.”
In the film, Wade Wilson (Deadpool) becomes hideously disfigured following botched cancer treatment - the same treatment that gives him his super-power. T.J. Miller, who plays his side-kick Weasel, wasn’t quite so supportive about Wilson’s new look but this improvised taunt by Miller didn’t quite make the final cut.
“Ice to see you”
In the scene which Deadpool is pursuing a bad guy on an ice rink, he was originally slated to say “Ice to see you”. This line might sound familiar - it was in fact a riff of the terrible ice-puns from Arnold Schwarzenegger's stint as Mr. Freeze in 1997’s Batman & Robin. The line was suggested by Fox executive Aditya Sood, but director Tim Miller instead plumped for the line “I’m going to kill you… in five minutes!”.
“This is the biggest piece of shit in the history of Earth.”
Deadpool took plenty of pot-shots at 2011’s The Green Lantern (which Ryan Reynolds also starred in), but the script writers almost dealt a snipe to the makers of 2009’s X-Men prequel film, X-Men Origins: Wolverine. In the rejected scene, Deadpool picks up an action figure of himself from that film (Deadpool had a minor role in the tame PG-13 flick), retorting “This is the biggest piece of shit in the history of Earth” before discarding the action figure to the floor. Ouch.
