This weekend, Deadpool and Wolverine may have the biggest box office opening of the year. But would it have had the same impact if Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine had been left out of the title? We’ll never know, because Ryan Reynolds changed the name of Deadpool 3 thanks to the immediate backlash against it.
Reynolds and Jackman appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live as guest hosts, via Yahoo Movies UK. During the interview segment, Reynolds revealed that the original title was Deadpool and Friend, which was a cheeky way to acknowledge Wolverine without saying his name. But once fans got wind of the title, the response was almost universally negative.
“The title leaked,” recalled Reynolds. “We looked at it and listened, and they hated that title. We were not feeling so good about that anymore.”