If you’ve seen Deadpool already, you have seen the one and only cut of the film. Contrary to rumors that an even more violent, more profane version would be coming in the form of a director’s cut on the Blu-ray, that will not be the case. This is coming from the director himself, Tim Miller, who addressed the question last week during a Q&A at Collider’s exclusive IMAX preview screening of the film:
“I don’t wanna be all Joss Whedon on you, but no there’s not [a director’s cut]… There are some deleted scenes that have some extra stuff, but I’m pretty happy with this cut. I like it.”
Miller did say that there were bits and pieces that producer Simon Kinberg (also present at the IMAX Q&A) “strongly suggested” he take out, referring to more of the workshop fight in particular that was apparently even more brutal than it is in the final cut:
“There’s some stuff on the DVD extras, I had a little more workshop fight in there that I liked—that’s the beat that we were talking about, [Simon’s] like, ‘Tim it’s violent enough, please’ and I’m like, ‘Oh no but man when he stomps on his face it’s awesome,’ and Simon’s like, ‘No we’ve got enough.’ (laughs)”
To be fair, Deadpool is plenty violent and also needs to fit into the larger X-Men universe, so verging into Quentin Tarantino territory would’ve made the picture a bit more of an outlier in terms of the overall tone of the universe. That said, Miller did a fantastic job of establishing a singular sensibility for Deadpool that feels unlike any other superhero movie out there, so I’d say he succeeded without the extra violent bits. And it’s nice to hear that Miller doesn’t intend to put those pieces of the film back into the movie and call it a “director’s cut,” although there’s no guarantee Fox won’t put an “Unrated Version” on the Blu-ray to boost home video sales. Considering the film’s massive box office success, though, I’m not sure they really need the extra enticement.
Watch the full Q&A from our IMAX screening below, which includes Miller, Kinberg, and Deadpool co-creator Rob Liefeld.
