Like so many of the best Marvel movies, Deadpool & Wolverine is full of wonderful moments that pay homage to what’s come before. In the case of the record-breaking superhero movie, this included an early and brilliant scene with Jon Favreau’s Happy Hogan, one of the biggest cameos of them all. But I was shocked to find out that this scene could have featured a very different MCU legend sitting across from Ryan Reynolds’ Wade Wilson.
This pivotal scene set in 2018, or right around the time of Avengers: Infinity War in the MCU timeline, sees Wade trying to become one of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes in his journey to find himself and a place in the world. While those who’ve seen the 2024 movie know that Happy is the one to break the bad news for the foul-mouthed antihero, Reynolds revealed in the commentary track on the Deadpool & Wolverine home release that he and director Shawn Levy toyed around with “like 65 versions of the scene,” including one that with Tony Stark:
We needed somebody who felt like an OG Marvel hero, and the initial thought really was Tony Stark, and eventually we knew that Jon [Favreau] was going to be available for a certain date; he gave us the date, we locked it. We thought we’d shoot with John and if we ever later on decided we wanted to do both, we left room for ourselves to do both Tony Stark and Happy Hogan.
It would have been great to see Robert Downey Jr. reprise his famous role as Iron Man five years (in real life, not the MCU) after his tragic, yet heroic death in Avengers: Endgame, and the moment would have been huge. However, it makes sense why Reynolds and Levy decided just to keep it as Happy having the pivotal conversation with Deadpool and not the iconic “genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist.”
Later on in his breakdown of the scene, Reynolds revealed that after he and Levy watched the scene and Favreau’s performance in it, they never went back:
The Happy Hogan stuff was so good, and Jon was just such a beautiful storyteller and presence in the movie, so perfect for Deadpool to be meeting him and not the Marvel Godfather. … It really just felt perfect to use and we never revisited any other version.
On top of that, Shawn Levy explained in the commentary track that having Happy in that scene instead of someone like Tony Stark – or Nick Fury, who was also considered at one point – was a better fit for Wade’s journey:
It feels like Happy, like Wade, isn’t quite full hero but he really has goodness in him, so who better to give advice to Wade than someone who’s found his place in a movie where Wade is really much looking for his.
Though I see why the decision was made, I can’t stop thinking about what that meeting at Avengers HQ would have looked like with Robert Downey Jr. trading barbs with Ryan Reynolds. The same goes for Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury, which could have led to some great The Hitman’s Bodyguard jokes.
But who knows, maybe we’ll get to see RDJ and Reynolds cross paths when the Academy Award winner takes on the role of Doctor Doom in some of the upcoming MCU movies. That is, if Deadpool remains Marvel Jesus for the foreseeable future.
Deadpool & Wolverine is currently available on Digital, with the physical release hitting shelves on October 22nd.