In the summer of 2013, Jeff Wadlow was hired to begin work on an X-Force script. The news broke just before Comic-Con and of course we expected to hear more about it. Then a funny thing happened. Wadlow’s Kick-Ass 2 opened and it was a flop, and suddenly we weren’t hearing about X-Force anymore other than that people really wanted it to happen, including Ryan Reynolds who was pushing to be Deadpool again at the time. But it never did happen, with Fox turning their energies towards a solo Deadpool movie, and the rest is box office history.
Wadlow is making the rounds chatting up his new horror film Truth Or Dare, but he was asked instead about X-Force (ugh). He shed some light on what his take on the militaristic mutant squad would have been, and how he would have used Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool in the movie…
“I wrote a draft and they really liked it. They just reached a critical moment, where they were deciding whether they were going to make Deadpool or X-Force. I’ve always loved Deadpool and I tried to rehabilitate him in my X-Force movie because, like the rest of the fans, I felt like they totally screwed it up in X-Men: Origins. I had actually been talking to Ryan Reynolds about playing him in my X-Force movie, but my X-Force movie was much more focused on Cable and the New Mutants becoming this paramilitary unit. So, Fox was trying to decide whether they going to do the Deadpool solo movie or my X-Force movie. Fortunately, they picked the Deadpool solo movie because it’s great. Fortunately for the world, I should say, but unfortunately for me. But, I have no complaints about the process. I’m a huge fan of Ryan’s and I loved the Deadpool solo movie. I’m super excited for Deadpool 2. It’s a little bit of a bummer, but that’s life in the big leagues.”
He also said that his team would have differed from the X-Men kids in a major way by taking them out of the comfy halls of the Xavier Institute…
“When I pitched for it, I said, ‘If X-Men is about the mutants that get to go to private school, I want to make a movie about the mutants that go to public school. They’re the kids that don’t have a jet swooping down to help them, with Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart. What’s it like when you don’t have those guys helping you out and you’re forced to figure out who you are in this world?’”
X-Force is due to hit the big screen soon in Deadpool 2, and then if all goes well they will get their own movie written and directed by Drew Goddard. Honestly, I like the sound of Wadlow’s better because it’s closer to the team of rebellious mutants I loved in the comics. [Collider]
