In an appearance opposite his costar Hugh Jackman on First We Feast’s Hot Ones show, Reynolds revealed his initial plan was to “hide” Deadpool & Wolverine inside an “intentionally bad” movie.
“The original idea with this movie was to shoot a fake movie called Alpha Cop, that was intentionally bad,” said Reynolds, adding he even had a poster made for the phony film, with the tagline, “Two cops, one brain, all b****.”
“It was about two guys that were sharing one brain and together they make the ultimate cop,” Ryan said.
Reynolds and Jackman would have starred in Alpha Cop, having filmed the real movie “in secret,” the actor-producer says.
He explained, “Like 10 people in America would go to see this movie on opening weekend and five minutes into the movie the Marvel logo would flip up and it would actually be Deadpool & Wolverine.”
But the very high stakes bait and switch had a very real danger, so the plan was scrapped. “The problem is that if you managed to get down to the last minute and [the cover] got blown, it would just be heartbreaking,” Ryan said.
While it’s unknown what Alpha Cop would have made in sneaks, the real movie has already set box office records.
Deadpool & Wolverine made $38.5 million from previews on Thursday alone: That’s the best-ever sneak preview showing for an R-rated film and the eighth highest sneak preview performance ever, adjusted for inflation.
For the record, it missed #7 on the list, Avengers: Infinity War, by only 1 million bucks.
According to the website The Numbers, Avengers: Endgame set the all-time record with $60 million before it actually opened.
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