We know the Fox X-Men movies had many projects in development before Disney took over the brand, but did you know director Jeff Wadlow planned an X-Force movie?
Speaking with the A Trip To The Movies With Alex Zane podcast, Wadlow dives into his once-planned X-Force script and compares it to Red Dawn.
The filmmaker says, “I put them on this sort of road movie. I modeled the movie a little bit after Red Dawn, the movie from the ’80s with Patrick Swayze. They were doing these mutant internment camps, which was an analog to the Japanese internment camps that happened during WWII. But they’re on the run in West Texas, and that was the vibe of the film.”
“I wanted this antagonist chasing them the whole time, and what most people know, Deadpool was introduced as a villain in the original X-Force run,” Wadlow continues. “I had our main villain hired, a mercenary, to hunt this ragtag group of mutants down, and the mercenary hired was Deadpool. And I said he’s in these motorcycle leathers with a red ballistic facemask, and I made it clear he’d look just like does in the comics…and he was the Merc With A Mouth.”
And, of course, Wadlow wanted Ryan Reynolds to return. He says, “I think the studio after X-Men Origins: Wolverine, there was a lot of uncertainty about where the X properties were going, but through my agency, I got in touch with Ryan. I got him the script, and he read it, and he loved it. He said, ‘It’s like this grand cameo for Deadpool’ he’s in a lot of the movie, but it’s definitely a supporting part. He’s almost like Tommy Lee Jones in The Fugitive chasing these characters…ultimately they turn him in the end.”
Ryan Reynolds’ Merc with a Mouth will return this year in Marvel Studios’ Deadpool and Wolverine, while Wadlow is currently promoting Blumhouse’s Imaginary; check out our interview with the director below…
