This Christmas there’s one guy in a red suit that you definitely don’t want a present from. Deadpool is actually set for a February release, but 20th Century Fox has been taking full advantage of the season with the 12 Days of Deadpool marketing campaign: two weeks of treats culminating in a brand new full-length trailer for the movie.
Directed by Tim Miller, Deadpool stars Ryan Reynolds in the title role as Wade Wilson, a man who undergoes some very unsafe experiments to try and save himself from the cancer that’s ravaging his body. The results are mixed, to say the least. Wade emerges covered from head to toe in horrible scarring, but on the plus side his accelerated healing abilities make him almost indestructible. Adopting the superhero moniker Deadpool and covering his gross body in red and black spandex, Wade sets out on a mission to beat up bad guys Ajax (Ed Skrein) and Angel Dust (Gina Carano).
The second red band trailer for Deadpool has now landed, with plenty of new action, comedy, and gratuitous butt and crotch shots of our hero. It also explicitly connects Deadpool to the X-Men movies, with Deadpool mentioning the superhero team when Colossus (Stefan Kapicic) and Negasonic Teenage Warhead (Brianna Hildebrand) show up - apparently to try and rein him in. Deadpool’s version of superhero-ing isn’t exactly X-Men approved; there’s a lot of stabbing involved.
We also get to see Colossus getting thoroughly owned by Angel Dust, Angel Dust getting equally owned by Negasonic Teenage Warhead, Deadpool both giving and receiving a whole lot of pain, another tactless appraisal of Wade’s new look from his friend Weasel (T.J. Miller), and Deadpool’s main squeeze Vanessa Carlyle (Morena Baccarin) assuring Ajax that she’s no damsel in distress.
This trailer just drives home our impression of Deadpool so far: that it will be a fun, violent, raunchy and irreverent superhero movie anchored to Reynolds’ powerful personality, but with plenty of interesting supporting characters, superheroes and supervillains included. Fans have been waiting a long time for a Deadpool solo movie, and superhero movies with an R rating are rather thin on the ground, so hopefully Deadpool’s uniqueness will make it appealing to general audiences as well.
With the release of Deadpool less than two months away we can expect to see a marketing deluge over the coming weeks. Fox has done a great job of promoting the film so far, despite being initially hesitant to give it a green light, and we’re looking forward to many more hilarious marketing stunts still to come.
Update: For those who don’t like strong language and/or violence, here’s the green band version of this trailer.
Deadpool will see theatrical release on February 12th, 2016, followed by X-Men: Apocalypse on May 27th, 2016; Gambit sometime in 2017; Wolverine 3 on March 3rd, 2017; and an untitled X-Men film on July 13th, 2018. The New Mutants is also in development.
