Concrete details on the mysterious PG-13 re-release of Deadpool 2 are finally here. It’s now officially called Once Upon a Deadpool, will be in theatres only from December 12 through 24 in the U.S., and $US1 of each ticket sold will go to the charity Fuck Cancer, renamed “Fudge Cancer” to keep the PG-13 going.
Deadline broke the news and spoke to star Ryan Reynolds about it. “Fox has been asking for a PG-13 basically since the start in 2006,” Reynolds said. “I’ve said ‘No’ since 2006. Now, this one time, I said ‘Yes’ on two conditions. First, a portion of the proceeds had to go to charity. Second, I wanted to kidnap Fred Savage. The second condition took some explaining…”
As previously revealed, Savage will co-star in this edited-down retelling of Deadpool 2, which runs about three minutes shorter than the original cut. Savage, Reynolds, and the crew shot all of the new footage in a single day to create a framing device reminiscent of The Princess Bride.
And while fans have been curious to see that footage and how the new movie will play with the more family-friendly rating, Deadline points out one group more than any other is keeping an eye on this experiment: Disney. “The response to the PG-13 repackaging is also being watched closely by the leadership at Disney and its Marvel Studios and may inform the way they incorporate Deadpool into their plans,” the site writes.
The Disney/Fox merger is likely to happen early in 2019 and Deadpool is certainly one of Fox’s biggest movie franchises. However, it’s also a hard R-rated series, which is something Disney is not accustomed to dealing with. So it’s possible that the way this version of Deadpool 2 is received could influence the company’s thoughts on that. It could make the character PG-13 going ahead, keep him R, do these kind of edits — at this point, nothing has been decided.
Nothing…except the fact that Once Upon a Deadpool, the PG-13 Christmas version of Deadpool 2, will hit theatres for two weeks starting December 12, with a portion of the proceeds going to “Fudge Cancer.”