How to design the perfect Deadpool movie trailer

It’s no secret that the narrative around the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been decidedly bleak since last fall when the release of The Marvels inspired major headlines like “How Marvel Lost Its Way,” “In Marvel we no longer trust,” and “The MCU isn’t dead but it’s hurting.”

Now bringing two of Marvel comics’ most controversial and beloved characters into the MCU together may just turn the tide. And who better to market this Hail Mary than Ryan Reynolds, who’s created his own genre of advertising over the past decade? This week, Reynolds dropped the first full trailer for the upcoming Deadpool & Wolverine, the third film in the Deadpool franchise.

The RCU (Reynolds Commercial Universe)

Reynolds’ expansive advertising career was sparked by his work to promote the first Deadpool back in 2015. He needed to be loud, quick, funny, and irreverent to bring attention to what was then considered a niche character and a low budget superhero flick.

He was all of those things—and it worked, to the tune of a worldwide box office take of $783.1 million, on a production budget of $58 million. It also helped launch his own creative agency, Maximum Effort, that’s gone on to produce a successful streak of ads for brands like Reynolds’ own Aviation Gin, Mint Mobile, Match.com, DoorDash, and more.

Each Deadpool film has included an impressive array of fun, unconventional ad ideas, whether it’s the emoji billboard from the original, or the Bob Ross homage for the sequel. But the anchor to all of this work around each film is the trailer.

Reynolds even used Deadpool (and MCU cult hero Korg) to promote his other Disney film Free Guy back in 2021.

The latest example follows the Reynolds formula for a successful Deadpool trailer, with some added MCU spice for good measure. It might just be the Reynoldsiest yet.

Here are the building blocks to designing the perfect Deadpool movie trailer. And Reynolds has pretty much done it again.

F-bombs & innuendo

Each Deadpool trailer needs to differentiate itself from standard MCU fare by getting a bit raw. That means F-bombs and less-than vague sexual innuendo.

Near the end of the original Deadpool trailer, after performing what looks like a horizontal triple Salchow jump and shooting three thugs in the head with one bullet, the hero stops to lustily inhale the gunsmoke from his two handguns. “Ahhhh. I’m touching myself tonight,” he says.

In the sequel’s trailer, as we’re introduced to Josh Brolin’s character Cable, Deadpool says, “What in the fucksicle is this?” Later on, as Deadpool and his new team are about to jump out of an airplane, he exclaims, “Now, let’s go get our fuck on.” Neither exactly an Iron Man or Captain America catchphrase.

Now, in the latest trailer, just as the opening beats to Madonna’s 1989 hit begin to flutter, Deadpool looks over at Wolverine and says, “I am soaking wet right now.”

Spicy soundtrack

Each Deadpool trailer has featured at least one absolute banger of a tune that you would never have instinctively put in a superhero action trailer. That counterintuitive song choices have given each a personality all their own.

For Deadpool, it was Salt-N-Pepa’s 1993 hit “Shoop,” which drops just as our hero is getting ready to take on an army of henchmen on a roadway bridge.

The sequel kicked off with Air Supply’s “All Out Of Love” from 1980, before jumping up a decade to into LL Cool J’s “Mama Said Knock You Out” from 1990.

Here, “Like A Prayer” somehow fits as snugly as Deadpool’s black and red suit. All that’s missing is a Pepsi and some religious protest.

Super self-awareness

A few things became apparent about Deadpool immediately during his first-ever trailer. The character would not only break the fourth wall regularly, but also joke about real-life things like Reynolds’ first superhero turn as Green Lantern, the entire genre of superhero flicks, and the MCU, specifically.

For the original, before Reynolds’ Wade Wilson undergoes the procedure that will give him his Deadpool powers, he screams, “Just don’t make the super suit green. Or animated!”

When Deadpool is describing his needs for a superhero team in the sequel’s trailer, he says, “They need to tough, morally flexible, and young enough to carry their own franchise for 10 to 12 years.”

There’s also a reference to the filmography of Reynolds’ wife Blake Lively’s filmography when Deadpool says to Dopinder, ““And that’s why Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants is pure pornography.”

Perhaps the funniest inside baseball joke so far comes at the end of the new trailer. Wade Wilson is talking to the elderly blind character Blind Al, who asks if Wilson wants to do some cocaine.

“Cocaine is the one thing that Feige said is off limits.”

Here we go.

Deadpool & Wolverine hits theaters on July 26th, but rest assured, there will be plenty more movie marketing mayhem between now and then.