Deadpool & Wolverine Director Reveals Certain Things Could Not Be in the Movie Despite R Rating

Deadpool & Wolverinemay be the first big screen R-rated offering from the MCU, but while audiences are looking forward to all manner of bloody violence and gloriously foul language, it turns out that some things were off limits. Director Shawn Levy discussed the adult-oriented Marvel outing with Total Film, and revealed that some of the more risqué jokes and references were vetoed by Kevin Feige, including “overt drug use.”

“I’m so wary of what I can say but certainly there were early conversations about overt drug use.”

However, in true Deadpool style, a cheeky solution was found, with Levy revealing that, instead of showing overt drug use, they would just make an overt joke about it instead.

“And we thought that was an interesting conversation. Let’s actually write a dialogue scene about having had it.”

Using the character’s ability to break the fourth wall, the joke they came up with actually appears in the trailer for Deadpool & Wolverine, with Ryan Reynolds’ Wade Wilson turning to the audience and saying “the one thing [Marvel Studios head] Kevin [Feige] says is off the table” as well as making reference to his best pal Blind Al partaking in some “Bolivian marching powder.”

Ryan Reynolds Was Surprised That Marvel Let Deadpool & Wolverine Be R-Rated

So, while Deadpool & Wolverine is still likely to push the envelope more than any other MCU outing where violence and swearing are concerned, it will still be required to hold back in other ways. This is still an MCU movie after all. However, despite these limits, Ryan Reynolds has described the movie as “the most Deadpool movie in the history of Deadpool” and could not believe that Feige and the studio allowed them to make it R-rated. As he explained to Fandango…

“I was surprised though that they let us go as Hard R… but very grateful. I mean, there’s no other way to do it. For this character and this world, and particularly Logan being an R-rated film as well, I felt like that was the most full-throated version of Wolverine or Logan that we’ve ever seen as well, so it really allowed us a lot of freedom, not exploiting the R rating just to do R-rated stuff, but really allowing us to do anything and everything in a world where anything and everything is possible.”

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Directed by Shawn Levy from a screenplay he wrote alongside Ryan Reynolds, Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick, and Zeb Wells, Deadpool & Wolverine is currently on track for a record-breaking opening weekend and follows Deadpool and Wolverine as they are tasked by the Time Variance Authority (TVA) with a new mission. A mission that will see him travel across the madness of the multiverse.