All Fox wants for Christmas are 12 more days of Deadpool — that’s certainly one valid interpretation of the studio’s plan to revamp, rename and re-release the year’s biggest R-rated hit, Deadpool 2, as a PG-13 film called Once Upon A Deadpool. There’s more to it than that, however. Deadline has all the details about the studio’s unconventional plan — a plan that may have intriguing relevance when viewed through the prism of the Disney-Fox merger and the future of the red-hot Deadpool franchise.
“Fox has been asking for a PG-13 basically since the start in 2006,” Reynolds told Deadline on Monday. “I’ve said no since 2006. Now, this one time, I said ‘Yes’ on two conditions. First, a portion of the proceeds had to go to charity. Second, I wanted to kidnap Fred Savage. The second condition took some explaining…”
Savage, of Wonder Years fame, co-stars with Reynolds in the framing sequence for Once Upon A Deadpool, which hijacks its bedtime-story set-up from The Princess Bride, the 1987 classic that also famously featured Savage as a child actor. In eight scenes were filmed that will be used as interstitial additions to the existing sequel’s footage. The running time of Once Upon A Deadpool is abut three minutes shorter than Deadpool 2 but Fox declined to be more specific about the new footage duration.
Reached last week by Deadline, Savage was still playing along with the spoof concept and the irreverent meta-spirit of the franchise: “While my participation in this film was anything but voluntary. I am happy to learn that Fudge Cancer will be the beneficiary of this shameless cash grab.”