When you hear the phrase “Marvel Studios producer,” the first name that comes to mind is Kevin Feige. Feige, of course, is a producer on all the Marvel films, but he’s also now president of the studio. He’s got a lot on his plate. But, if you watch any Marvel movie, you’ll see there are a lot of different producers besides him. Like, in the case of Deadpool & Wolverine, Wendy Jacobson.
Jacobson was a producer on the underrated Disney+ show She-Hulk: Attorney at Law before moving over to the other fourth wall-breaking Marvel hero. Before that though, she worked with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson on some of his big disaster films: Skyscraper, Rampage, and San Andreas. So, if anyone has the balance of dealing with big personalities and comedic Marvel stories, it’s definitely Jacobson.
io9 spoke to Jacobson about Deadpool & Wolverine and we found out what the most difficult thing was about the production, besides those actor and writers’ strikes, of course. She also told us about balancing all the narrative the film has to deal with, the evolution of the story once Hugh Jackman was involved, and if we’ll ever see She-Hulk on screen again.
Oh, and did you know they tried to get Deadpool into She-Hulk? Read the interview below.
Germain Lussier, io9: So, obviously the answer to this question is “the strikes,” so besides the strikes, what was the most difficult part of getting this movie all finished up?
Wendy Jacobson: Honestly, the most challenging thing was coming back to shoot in the dead of winter in London. We had planned to be finished through the summer and we had shot half the movie, so our costumes were designed for a spring/summer shoot. So we had a lot of big sequences that we were shooting outside with a lot of actors who were not dressed for 20-degree London weather and it was pretty remarkable. We had heating tents and heating tubes and we had an army of costumers who were standing by with giant jackets and as soon as someone said cut, they’d be running in and wrapping up the actors. In addition to the freezing weather, we were also losing three to four hours of daylight and shooting time per day. So that was really kind of singularly the biggest challenge.
io9: Yeah, you’d never think of that. In some recent interviews, Ryan [Reynolds] has talked about all the different versions of the movie that he had before Hugh [Jackman] came on board. But when Hugh did come on board, how much did the movie change after that?
Jacobson: You know, the truth is before Hugh came on, we really had just been banding about outline versions and we didn’t have a full feature that we were ready to go write a script. But as soon as Hugh came on, we had a script in eight weeks. We opened the production office a week later and we were shooting six months after that. So I would say that as soon as we had that first draft, I think structurally it really stuck to what you’re going to see in the film. But as these movies go and as surely as Deadpool movies go with rewriting and ADR and stuff, the movie just continued to get better and richer and more emotional. But it’s pretty close to the original idea.
io9: Obviously, this movie has a lot of action but it also has a ton of setup, right? Like you’re coming off Deadpool 2, Logan, and setting up the story here. Tell me about keeping the balance of keeping it high octane, but also getting all the important narrative in there.
Jacobson: That’s a very good question. I mean, the truth is I do think there are some things expositionally we had to kind of take care of at the top, but not unlike any other movie where the first act is really setting up kind of what the journey is going to be. And I think as soon as we get that out of the way, we’re really on a great mission-driven film with these two guys. So there’s definitely a balance, but I also think the truth is that for people who haven’t seen Deadpool 1 and 2 or Logan or the X-Men films or the MCU films, I still think you can watch this movie and very much enjoy it.
io9: We know about some cameos from the trailers, but we assume there are going to be many more exciting, surprising cameos. Without naming any names, did that pose any huge problems or do any scheduling conflicts come to mind?
Jacobson: This feels like a trick question.
io9: No, it’s not. I’m just wondering, from a producing standpoint, was there anything that happened logistically that made things difficult with any cameo?
Jacobson: You know, I would say this. The word “cameo” is something that we don’t use very often in our group because we feel like cameo implies a “look who’s back” or a shock value. Anyone who may or may not be in this movie is there for a critical story purpose or has a very well-rounded beginning, middle, and end character arc.
io9: Okay. Excellent. Now this isn’t your first project in the MCU. You also worked on She-Hulk which we loved and covered the heck out of. Obviously you can’t spoil anything but just personally, do you think we’ll get to see her in the MCU again either on Disney+ or in a movie?
Jacobson: I would love to. That’s all I can say.
io9: Okay. So you produced She-Hulk and now Deadpool, who are probably the two most famous, fourth-wall-breaking characters there are. Is that now your niche? And what would happen if they ended up on screen together?
Jacobson: That’s also a good question. You know, I don’t know if the fourth wall breaking is my niche. It’d be great if comedy was my niche. You know, my uncle actually, Danny Jacobson, is a big writer-producer and gave Ryan his first big break on a show he ran called, called Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place. So maybe it’s in my blood. I would love to keep doing comedy. And yeah, I would love to see She-Hulk and Deadpool together. We tried to get Deadpool into She-Hulk also, but didn’t work out.
io9: Wow, that would have been awesome. Last thing, Shawn [Levy], Hugh, and Ryan are such personality powerhouses. What is it like to be outside of that trio creatively? Is it hard to get your ideas in or not at all?
Jacobson: Those guys are so awesome and collaborative. And the truth is they’re such brilliant creative visionaries that I feel like my role is really one of support, right? To try and make their vision a reality. So you let them go do their thing. I try to help as best as I can and every now and then if there’s an opportunity to sprinkle in a new idea or anything like that, they’re totally receptive. And the truth is they’ll take a good idea from anywhere on the film set because they just want to make the best movie possible. So it’s been really, really collaborative and really awesome to work with them.
Deadpool & Wolverine opens July 26.
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