With "Deadpool" poised to be a box office behemoth this weekend, fans will no doubt be feting 20th Century Fox for taking a gamble on a hard-R movie centered around the cult character, but wise executives always protect their risky moves. Just before the green light was given, the filmmakers were given a task by studio suits — cut the budget by $7 million. Writer Rhett Reese revealed that meant dropping some action scenes from the movie. So what was torn out from the script?
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“Angel Dust, played by Gina Carano, used to be three different characters,” Reese told io9. “It was Garrison Kane, Sluggo and Wire. There was a reduction of action. We had a motorcycle chase between Deadpool and Ajax on the freeway that we took out. We had a big, big gun fight in the third act that we took out and we basically had Deadpool forget his guns as a means of getting around it. So there were just reductions.”
However, Reese sees the silver lining that emerged from that situation. “It was that last, lean and mean chop that got us to a place where Fox was willing to make it,” he said. “The script was very efficient and not too long. That was a function of budget more than anything, but I think it really made the movie pace nicely.”
Fair point, but one has to wonder what another $7 million mattered to a movie that has a reported budget of $58 million. But maybe it went into the onslaught of marketing that is positioning the movie for a possible $90 million weekend. And no doubt, "Deadpool" feels filled to the gills as it is. That said, Reese and Paul Wernick, who will be back to write the sequel, can probably rest assured they have will have much more money to play with next time around.