Deadpool 2 spared no chance to make fun of its star’s previous films, and it seems that even the writer of Green Lantern appreciated their efforts.
Marc Guggenheim, who wrote the 2011 DC Comics/Warner Bros. film, made his comments on on Twitter after seeing the movie.
“Just saw Deadpool 2. Well played, @VancityReynolds. Well played,” he said, adding a Green Lantern hashtag.
As you may have guessed, @VancityReynolds is Ryan Reynolds, who not only starred as Wade Wilson/Deadpool in the movie, but was also a co-writer and producer. He also played protagonist Hal Jordan in Green Lantern, which both the movie and its advertising campaign were quick to make fun of.
Green Lantern was Warner Bros. first attempt to begin a shared universe based on the properties of DC Comics; unfortunately for the studio, it was a dud, getting poor reviews and making less than $220 million on a $200 million budget. As such, the shared universe idea was dropped for that film, but would later be picked up after the comparable success of Man of Steel two years later.
The character of Deadpool is known for being very meta; the comic book version often alludes to the fact that he’s in a comic book, so naturally Reynolds’ film portrayal does the same. It has even become an important part of the marketing, which included several jabs at the ongoing DC Extended Universe and Marvel Cinematic Universe, which Deadpool somehow knows about and compares his film to.
Reynolds already made fun of his former movie in Deadpool, but the sequel added a new gag in its post-credits scene (spoiler): after using time travel to save his fiancee, Vanessa (Morena Baccarin), Deadpool goes back in time to assassinate Ryan Reynolds himself as he is reading the script for Green Lantern. “You’ll thank me, Canada,” he says. (He also killed the underwhelming version of Deadpool that he played in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, in order to “fix the timeline.”)
Warner Bros. has playfully responded to some of these gags (see here and here, for example), while Marvel Studio’s head honcho, Kevin Feige, says that he has enjoyed the jokes at the MCU’s expense. The fact that Fox has also made fun of its own X-Men movies probably helps.
