Deadpool and Wolverine almost presented a connection to Marvel’s worst-reviewed film

With “Fantastic Four: First Steps,” the Marvel Cinematic Universe finally got Marvel’s First Family after four previously disappointing attempts to bring the characters to the big screen. Well, mostly disappointing. Josh Trank’s 2015 box office flop, “Fantastic Four,” might be best described as a historical disaster — and it seems Ryan Reynolds was initially keen to revisit that flop with 2024’s “Deadpool & Wolverine.”

The wildly successful team-up between Reynolds’ Merc with a Mouth and Hugh Jackman’s Logan was, in the end, essentially one long cameo-fest, featuring everyone from Wesley Snipes’ Blade to Chris Evan’s Johnny Storm from “Fantastic Four” and “Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer.” But according to Reynolds, there were ambitions to include more former Fantastic Four members in the form of Miles Teller’s Reed Richards, Kate Mara’s Sue Storm, Michael B. Jordan’s Johnny Storm and Jamie Bell’s Ben Grimm from 2015’s “Fantastic Four.”

Unfortunately for this forgotten team of superheroes on the big screen, they didn’t make the cut due to several factors. Speaking to Collider, Reynolds confirmed that he had initially wanted to bring back the 2015 team, but quickly had to abandon the idea, partly due to the fact that they already had Chris Evans’ version of Johnny Storm in the film – which was one of the film’s biggest misdirections. “You’ll never go wrong with Chris Evans, you know,” Reynolds explained, adding that Evans gave him and director Shawn Levy a “thrill license.” Beyond that, budgetary concerns also played a significant role in the decision to abandon Team Trank.

Amid the cavalcade of guest appearances, “Deadpool & Wolverine” features one of Marvel Studios’ biggest stars, Chris Evans. When he first appears in the film, fans are led to believe that he is playing his most famous role: Steve Rogers/Captain America. But it’s quickly revealed that the actor is actually playing his version of Johnny Storm from the “Fantastic Four” films of the early 2000s, in one of “Deadpool & Wolverine’s” most successful surprises. Including a separate Fantastic Four team would have lessened the impact. But it seems that wasn’t the only thing holding back Trank’s cast, as Ryan Reynolds was also worried about his film’s budget.

The actor, who is often touted as something of a marketing genius, is almost guaranteed to find a way to make his films (and several companies) successful. But in “Deadpool & Wolverine,” Reynolds played a character he had long cared about and was therefore even more invested in ensuring the film was a success. As such, he wanted to make sure he could deliver on his promises, and bringing back the cast from Josh Trank’s ill-fated film ultimately didn’t work. “We were trying to stay on budget,” Reynolds told Collider. “We were trying to make the movie. We always understood that it was rated R, you know. It’s not a blank check, and part of our responsibility is to return the investment that they’re making in us.”

With Reynolds somewhat limited by the R rating, he knew he had to balance the fun of the cameos with the risk of harming the film’s profit potential. With that in mind, it seems like he didn’t want to push for more cameos than he thought was fair. “I never want a budget that I don’t feel like I can achieve,” he continued. “And the more types of toys you ask for and the more characters you want to license, the deeper that kind of point of no return sinks in.”

“Deadpool & Wolverine” is full of cameos, to the point where filling it with guest stars seemed like more important than telling a story. But when your movie makes $1.3 billion, you’re clearly doing something right. In this case, that “something” gave the fans what they wanted. “Deadpool & Wolverine” dominated the box office, delivering an undeniably audience-pleasing experience that seemed perfectly designed to capture audiences and appeal to every fan’s cameo dreams.

It’s pretty much the exact opposite of 2015’s “Fantastic Four,” which disappointed both fans and critics. The film currently has a score of 9% on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 260 reviews. That’s significantly lower than the MCU’s lowest-rated film, “Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania,” with 46 percent. Hell, it’s less than the disaster that was the unreleased 1994 “Fantastic Four” film. Phrases like “beyond depression,” “shameful” and “a 100-minute trailer for a movie that never happens” were thrown around by critics when 2015’s “Fantastic Four” was released, and the film seemed to have killed any hope of Marvel’s first family getting a cinematic release decent.

Revisiting such a depressing film may not have been the best idea for a film designed to please audiences as much as possible. While “Deadpool & Wolverine” was partly intended to give a strong start to the Fox era of Marvel and its characters, and to shine a spotlight on forgotten heroes, it seems like the Josh Trank-led Fantastic Four team would have been a step too far in that direction. While a character like Wesley Snipes’ Blade remains beloved by fans who remember his excellent debut in 1998, the lack of fan support for Trank’s Fantastic Four ensemble – especially compared to former X-Men actors, for example – means it’s not hard to see why Ryan Reynolds was inclined to focus on other cameos.