Deadpool 2 wastes no time in killing off Vanessa and Cable's wife and daughter, a creative decision many fans have branded as sexist (that's despite Domino being given a sizeable role and the fact the sequel features the first LGBT couple in a superhero movie). Now, writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick have been asked whether they gave that any thought while penning the script with Ryan Reynolds.
"In the very first drafts of the script, Vanessa didn’t die," Reese revealed in a recent interview with Vulture. "She ended up breaking up with Deadpool, and he was trying to earn her back. Then I think at some point somebody just said, ‘Y’know, Deadpool kind of works best when he’s had everything taken away from him, when he suffers.’ So the thought was maybe we can really, really engender great suffering for him by having his line of work be the thing that costs Vanessa her life."
"We always had in our back pocket that we could always bring [Vanessa] back if necessary," he adds. "So, we ran with that. And maybe that’s a sexist thing. I don’t know. And maybe some women will have an issue with that. I don’t know. I don’t think that that’ll be a large concern, but it didn’t even really occur to us." Wernick went on to explain that killing off Cable's family was done to put him in the same boat as the Merc with the Mouth and excused their respective demises by pointing out that all of them are ultimately resurrected at the end of the well-received sequel thanks to time travel.
"I also think we definitely paid attention to trying to fill the movie with a diverse group of strong female characters, interesting, different female characters," Reese is quick to point out to the site. "Whether it’s Domino, or Negasonic Teenage Warhead — and Vanessa, herself, obviously, is certainly that. So we’ve definitely made a point of not having this just be a testosterone-fueled thing."
Do you agree with these remarks or should Deadpool 2 have treated its female characters better?
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