When the news was first announced that Deadpool 2 would be re-released in cinemas in a PG-13 cut, the majority of reactions among the fans ranged from baffled to outraged. Still, with all the new footage that’s been shot for Once Upon a Deadpool, it’s clear that a good few of these detractors will be showing up to the theaters, if only begrudgingly.
What’s more, the team behind this family-friendly reworking have found an amusing way of editing out the gory bits while staying true to the tone of the series, framing the action as a bedtime story in a parody of The Princess Bride. But while the general setup of these Fred Savage scenes owes a clear debt to the cherished 1987 fantasy flick, it seems that perhaps some credit should also go to writer and artist Michael Vincent Bramley, who predicted this homage with startling accuracy almost a year ago.
Bramley’s tweet comes to us from December 2017, months before the regular R-rated Deadpool 2 hit theaters, and it reads as follows:
“If Marvel forces you to make a PG-13 Deadpool, just copy the framing device from The Princess Bride and have Deadpool censoring it for Fred Savage as a bedtime story. A kidnapped adult Fred Savage. There, I fixed it.”
Seeing how writer and star Ryan Reynolds was even tagged in this message, it’s hard to dismiss the similarities of Bramley’s idea and the eventual film as mere coincidence. Sure enough, the artist has since taken to Twitter to call the writers out:
“Sooo… I tweeted the exact plot of the new ‘Once Upon A Deadpool’ PG version of Deadpool 2 at Ryan Reynolds almost a year ago and it somehow wound up in a movie without me knowing.”
Since Bramley doesn’t seem all that interested in taking legal action, hopefully this situation will get resolved before things get ugly. At the very least, assuming the idea did indeed originate with the guy, perhaps we can expect to see a little shout-out in the credits of Once Upon a Deadpool when the film hits theaters on December 12th.