You just started a (Twitter) war, Deadpool, as the directors of Avengers: Infinity War strike back at the Merc with a Mouth after his latest gag at their expense.
When the Marvel Cinematic Universe epic began its promotional tour a while back, the directors, brothers Joe and Anthony Russo, began a campaign to prevent any spoilers from leaking. On Twitter, they posted a photograph of a letter where they asked fans not to reveal anything that they learned about the movie. They tagged it with #ThanosDemandsYourSilence, in reference to the villain of the movie (played by Josh Brolin), and included a picture of his Infinity Gauntlet in the photo.
Yesterday, as Deadpool 2 prepared to begin its “‘Deadpool 2: This is Kind of Your Guys’ Fault’ World Tour,” its star, producer and co-writer Ryan Reynolds released his own letter in a clear parody of the Russo brothers’. It included several similar phrases and other gags, and had Deadpool’s gloved hand accompanied by a baby’s and what looks like the paws of two dogs. Its humorous tag is #WadeWilsonDemandsYourSisterSorryStupidAutoCorrectSilence.
The Russo responded, and despite their cinematic propensity for big, epic scenes, the clap-back was elegant in its simplicity: a picture of Thanos’ Infinity Gauntlet, flicking Reynolds off. “Boom…” they added.
“I deserve that,” Reynolds tweeted back.
Of course, this is all in good fun. The whole marketing campaign for the Deadpool movies is based around being as weird and as meta as possible, just like the character is in both the comics and now on the silver screen. As such, the commercials have made numerous jokes about both the MCU and its rival, the DC Extended Universe. Kevin Feige, head of Marvel Studios, has admitted that he loves these gags at their expense.
And it’s not like Reynolds is unwilling to make fun of himself, too, with a joke about his Green Lantern movie in the first film and this apology for other movie blunders that he’s made in the past.
Most importantly, the Russos have no reason to feel threatened by Reynolds/Deadpool; for all of his success, they have now created a record-breaking film of epic proportions, which got the biggest opening weekend ever and was the fastest movie to ever reach $1 billion. And besides, from a certain perspective, Deadpool’s gags are just a form of free advertising anyway.
