New Deadpool & Wolverine “Best Bubs” Teaser Spoils a Major Character’s Return
Deadpool & Wolverine is less than a month away, and Marvel is continuing its stellar marketing campaign with more footage from the movie. This time, it’s a spoiler that some of the leaked set pictures revealed months ago. This comes in the form of one of the many surprise appearances from other Marvel films. I’m not John Campea, so I don’t want to spoil this for anyone who doesn’t know about it yet, but if you’re interested or couldn’t escape the set pics, you can see the video below and my comments on it after that:
*SPOILERS*
I wish they wouldn’t do this. I know the pictures are out there, and the cat is out of the bag for a lot of people, but I’m sure there are some fans who’ve managed to avoid these spoilers, and they should be rewarded for their vigilance. Moreover, I feel like I’ve seen quite enough of Deadpool & Wolverine before opening day; I don’t need to watch the set-up for what will hopefully be an epic throwdown between two legendary comic book arch-nemeses who never got the big movie fight they deserved. However, it does look very cool, and I’m glad they went with Tyler Mane’s version of Sabretooth; as much as I like Liev Schreiber and think he’s the better actor, Tyler Mane looks more like Sabretooth from the comics. And beyond just the look, Sabretooth is supposed to tower over Wolverine (he’s fond of referring to Logan as “the runt”), and Hugh Jackman is 6’2 or 6’3. Liev Schreiber is the same height, whereas Tyler Mane is 6’9, which is about the right height for Sabretooth anyway. He’s a more intimidating figure, which is what you need more than acting talent for what is probably a single scene. I’m glad Mane’s Sabretooth can talk now, too; he could only growl in X-Men, and I want some taunting and byplay between the two feral mutants while they cut each other to pieces.
Deadpool’s pre-fight commentary is great, too, and indicative of why Marvel released this clip. They want to drill into people’s heads that this movie is going to be fun and satisfying, and that it will pay off a lot of things fans have wanted to see for decades – in this case, a suitably epic and bloody Wolverine vs. Sabretooth fight. I’ve said it before, but I think aside from Hugh Jackman and Ryan Reynolds playing the title characters again, this is the main reason why people are excited for Deadpool & Wolverine; it promises to be a thank-you to longtime fans, a movie that gets them in a way Marvel hasn’t in the past few years. A third Deadpool film is the perfect vehicle for this because this series was predicated on bringing the proper Deadpool to the screen after X-Men Origins: Wolverine turned him into Baraka. The same writing team is back (plus one straggler, but I suspect he’s there in name only to placate Feige), director Shawn Levy has said all the right things since he signed up, and most talk indicates that Kevin Feige, Marvel Studios, and Disney mostly stayed out of their way. All of that plus Ryan Reynolds have earned Deadpool & Wolverine a ton of trust and goodwill from an audience that desperately wants these movies to be fun and cool again, and nothing says “fun and cool” like Wolverine and Sabretooth fighting to the death while Deadpool heckles from the peanut gallery.
