Deadpool & Wolverine delivered on its promise and ended up being one of the best Multiverse Saga movies to date. A lot of work went into making the threequel a reality, and filmmaker Shawn Levy enlisted Shane Reid and Dean Zimmerman as editors.
Reid counts the likes of Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire and Saturday Night among his credits, while Zimmerman is Levy's longtime collaborator, having worked on the Night at the Museum franchise, Real Steel, Free Guy, The Adam Project, and many more.
We recently had the good fortune to sit down with Reid and Zimmerman to learn more about their work on the Deadpool threequel.
During our conversation, they talked in detail about the Deadpool Corps' role in the movie (including that incredible oner), the Honda Odyssey fight scene, Wesley Snipes' big Blade moment, the Wolverine Variants sequence, and that iconic scene where Hugh Jackman's Logan finally dons Wolverine's comic-accurate mask.
It's an insightful, fun chat full of new reveals about Deadpool & Wolverine. They also expressed their gratitude to fans for their support and the love the movie has received since it was released in theaters this past July.
You can watch the full interview with Reid and Zimmerman about their work on Deadpool & Wolverine below.
Before we get to the Deadpool Corps fight scene, there are those great establishing shots of Babypool and Cowboypool’s spurs, for example, as they come through the portal. How challenging was it to tease those characters before the big reveal?
Dean: I’m going to let Shane speak to this one because it’s actually one where Shane was on set helping choreograph and work with the second unit director to get all these amazing characters coming through the portal. The ones that we had…there was such a plethora and variety of Variants, but how do we showcase them? This was where the trust factor and collaboration between me, Shane, Shawn, and Ryan really took hold and blossomed. They allowed us to go down there and pick up shots we thought would highlight some of these things.
Shane: I stepped into a relationship that Dean and Shawn have had for 20-plus years and Dean has worked on four films with Ryan. They had a very established trust and I came into that and, one of the first things Dean and I did this for, was stepping in and grabbing some additional shots for the suit up montage. I could see how it was done between these guys. Essentially, Shawn and Ryan only have enough time to get these massive sequences done before they’re moving to each set so there’s this really valued trust in saying, ‘Hey, Shane and Dean, you know what else we need. If you need stuff, speak up, throw it in a list, or head down to set with George Cottle, our Second Unit Director, and pick some things up.’ That day, I ran down there because I was assembling that sequence and just wanted a little bit more to work with. We knew we wanted that song to play, so I went down there and we picked up a few things like a few extra bits of Cowboypool and a lot of the shooting when they’re shooting at Nicepool’s back and picking up some of those shots. We grabbed anything we could to help beef the edit up because we know what Shawn and Ryan want these sequences to look like and you cull and you cull and you cull on set, and then you go and fill it in with all those extra details so you can actualise what’s in their heads.
The Honda Odyssey scene has some great beats like the shots from outside the car and the moment Wade pauses to say how…hard…the car goes. What was it like to assemble that sequence and make it work as well as it does?
Dean: That was definitely one where when I put it together, I showed Shane and it was great and everything but he wanted to go unabashedly so fast and have it cut just micro tight. We tried a million songs to it but the Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta song won out, ‘You’re the one that I want.’ It all came together and once Shane gave me that note, we unabashedly cut that sucker like the most violence interior car fight. At the same time, Ryan was definitely the catalyst of it being as bloody as possible. He tried to get his katanas out and can’t use them so then he just has those little things and you’ve got Wolverine in there with his claws. Once we put it all together, it was just so ridiculous, we wanted more. Ryan was like, ‘When I roll over and I’m on top of Hugh, and he’s laughing at me, I want some blood to just drip into his mouth.’ We’re like, ‘Okay, why not?’ As soon as we did it, it was pure euphoria. We were just like, ‘Oh my God, let’s go…where else can we do spurting blood everywhere?’ That was one of those scenes where it was just so fun having two guys legit beat the shit out of each other for three minutes. It’s awesome.
Shane: We’ve talked about this before, but this is the only movie where you have a buddy action drama road trip movie where amongst the tension, these guys are weaponised and can physically assault each other in ways you’ve never seen. I think we’re all slightly desensitised in some way to forget that there’s no movie where someone is stabbing someone in the ribs because they’re pissed off at them. To contain the angst and violence…I remember reading it in the script and almost getting teary emotionally just with the sense of what a joy this sequence is that was thought up and to put it on an audience would be so exciting.
As well as violence, humour is a big part of the movie as we see in that great moment with Wesley Snipes’ Blade where he says about there only being one Blade and we then cut to Deadpool’s reaction. There’s probably a version of the scene where he says that, you get a quick laugh, and he fires the rocket launcher, but Wade’s response sells it perfectly. Was finding humour and adding those reactions to get those bigger laughs a big part of the job too?
Dean: Yeah, anywhere we could inject comedy, we obviously did. We had many versions, like you said, where he would comment on it. For a minute, there was a Mahershala [Ali] joke there, but at the end of the day, just having him turn to camera to break that fourth wall just felt pure Deadpool-ian and was what we went with. That’s the brilliance of Ryan. He’s ultra-sensitive of when that happens because if you do too much it becomes not special and if you don’t do it enough, people miss it. To strike that balance was something he was tracking all the time. In every scene, he can break the fourth wall. It can easily happen because there are no rules with Deadpool. Anywhere we could do that and have it be as successful as it was…again, just giving weight to Wesley and Blade. He really respects him and wasn’t going to throw a huge dig on him but wanted the audience to know, ‘C’mon.’ At the end of the day, it felt like the perfect thing. Everything was tried, true, and tested, so the pace we had to work at to get through all the different variations of every single joke in the movie to land on where we did, there was no stone unturned. We exhausted all options. We summoned everything we could to enhance the joke or better it or plus it and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t.
To go back to the Deadpool Corps fight scene, there are so many moments in that you’re only going to notice on a rewatch. To get that where it needed to be with the one cut to Blind Al in a oner that has the hero shot at the end, how challenging was it to create?
Shane: A lot more than you’d think actually in some ways. It’s an idea Ryan has had for a long time to have that song and oner shot, but you really hold hands with everybody and commit to an idea. That was a very well choreographed…I remember all of us watching it on set and Alex Kyshkovych, our stunt coordinator and designer, and George Cottle, our second unit director, did all that. They would do it in a way where people would be wearing Deadpool masks and you’d see fake blood and we could all visualise it and watch it as one thing as everyone is hooting and hollering saying how they can’t wait and how it’ll be amazing. You put it into a film and, especially when you start putting it in front of people, you stress test how long people can hold on to that. Shawn had the brilliant foresight to get that moment with Blind Al and it allowed us a way to split that scene up and keep the train going so the audience doesn’t fall off. That’s the last thing you want after all the anticipation you’ve built. It’s hard in a movie like this to keep that succinct and to do it in a fish bowl is even harder. We rely on getting it in front of an audience, feel what they feel, and cater around what the audience reaction is.
I’ve seen other interviews where you’ve talked about pitching a much grander version of the Wolverine Variants sequence during the downtime caused by the strikes. There are characters from the comics I never expected to see, but were there any you pushed for that didn’t make the cut?
Dean: Yeah, there was a whole bunch of them.
Shane: There were some funny ones.
Dean: One of our storyboard artists was a huge comic book fan and he gave us a list of, like, ten of them. There was also, and maybe no on really likes to hear this, time and budget issues you have to deal with as well. Here’s a perfect example: the brown and tan, we spent around $100,000 building that suit. They’re expensive. To build this kind of stuff…we have to get a little economical with what we could actually come up with and do. So, yeah, ‘Hugh, can you take your shirt off be bolted to a cross?’ ‘Yeah, I can do that, no problem.’ ‘Great, let’s get a bunch of pink skulls, throw ‘em down there, and light it in the way of the comic book.’ ‘Can you be an old man?’ ‘Sure!’ They were all thought out but also done with budget in mind and also time. We didn’t have much time. Once we resumed shooting, our deadline on this movie was so tight. When we went back to photography in London, we did have a finite amount of time and even coming up with all those ideas, once we got back, we were like, ‘Hey everyone, we’re going to do this’ and everyone’s heads are exploding. How are we going to do this in the time we have left?
Shane: The reason we could is because we were able to shed some things. That time between the break, we used as well as we could. Dean and I did a hard pitch to Shawn and Ryan about that sequence and, again, being in a relationship with collaborators who see your vision and then run with it, because we were economically able to take some things out we might have wanted to get or didn’t need any more, we were able to fit that in. Dean and I have said this a few times, but the film benefited from that break. We luckily were able to problem solve things and come up with new things. It’s one of those things that while it was a challenge and scary at the time, in some ways, it helped in this experience for us to push the film a little bit further.
You’ve blown my mind with that statistic about the brown and tan suit costing $100,000.
Dean: Like I said, it’s one of those things that’ll stand the test of time. Just the costumers…it’s all hand made. It’s all done to an inch of Hugh’s body. To shoot it all as well.
Shane: Yeah, it’s a lot.
Talking of Hugh’s suit, the moment he puts the mask on…there’s a lot of build up and fans waited years to see it. Did you play around a lot with that sequence or was it always meant to play out like that?
Dean: It was always planned that way. We definitely…Shane definitely made the audience wait for it, for sure.
Shane: [Laughs]
Dean: It was one of those things where we were like, ‘How much foreplay can we do before we actually get to the meat of it?’ That was definitely planned out and tested. We wanted to give…we’ve said this many times in other interviews, but we cut everything for the fans. We do everything for you guys. If we can give you the most delight, that’s what we’re gonna do. And if we can make you hold and wait just so that anticipation and exhilaration that you know what’s coming and either we can pull out the rug from under you or make you wait a little longer, or in this case we deliver and give it to you, it’s all mindful of what the best way is to make you guys enjoy this to the maximum. We’re very blessed to be able to do that and very thankful you guys have embraced the movie as the world has. For me, the most gratifying thing has been seeing people go back to the cinema, so we thank you guys for allowing us to give you what you wanted and were asking for. That’s the ultimate compliment and gratification.
Shane: It also shows you the foresight of great music choices are important. Ryan has had that song in his head for years and the song does what it does on a giant, gruesome bloody fight sequence. It balances and contrasts with this elation, but at the same time, the intro of that song is a banger. When you know you’re putting it on those guys walking out, you really get to savour that moment. Because there’s such a strong choice was made that was so right, you’re able to draw this thing out and know you’re going to deliver. The anticipation also for the visuals and mask but the song to pop off and you know it’s coming. It all works hand-in-hand and is done really well there.
Deadpool & Wolverine is now available on Digital platforms (Prime Video, Apple TV, Fandango) and claws its way onto 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray, and DVD on October 22.