Deadpool & Wolverine Almost Had Mephisto as Its Main Villain

Deadpool & Wolverine Almost Had Mephisto as Its Main Villain By Ryan Reynolds and director Shawn Levy revealed during a recent interview that their upcoming film, , which also stars Hugh Jackman, nearly had Mephisto as its main villain. The immortal demonic entity previously appeared in the 2007 film Ghost Rider and its 2012 sequel, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, and could have been the primary antagonist in Deadpool & Wolverine if the filmmakers had decided to keep one of the early versions of the story. Ryan Reynolds and Shawn Levy considered having Mephisto as Deadpool & Wolverine’s villain According to Reynolds and Levy, Mephisto serving as the Deadpool 3 villain was one of the ideas they “flirted with” in the initial stages of the development of the film.

However, things changed after Jackman came on board. “We went through a lot of ‘almost’ versions of this story before we landed,” Levy told . “Frankly, it was the infamous call from Hugh, but then it was this idea of Cassandra Nova as a sibling to Charles because Cassandra’s link to Professor X creates an interesting dynamic and fascination in Cassandra about you [to Jackman],” he added.

According to Levy, Jackman reached out right when he and Reynolds were planning to call Marvel Studios’ President Kevin Feige about putting Deadpool 3 on hold. Before that, they had “fits and starts” but were struggling to come up with a story that was “original and non-derivative” of the previous two mo.