Video: Deadpool Defends Nickelback

In case you haven’t heard, Fox and the makers of Deadpool 2 have figured out a brilliant way to add even more moolah to the movie’s already-substantial box office haul: recognizing that it’s unusual for a comic book movies to be rated R, and that said rating means there’s a portion of superhero-lovin’ audience members out there who can’t see the flick, they’ve re-cut the movie to be PG-13, added some new footage to lure back idiots like me, and re-titled the film Once Upon a Deadpool. I imagine this is all costing the studio peanuts compared to what they’ll make from the re-jiggered sequel once it’s released this Wednesday, December 12 (to say nothing of eventual home video sales). So, like I said: brilliant.

To promote Once Upon a Deadpool, Fox has now released the below video, which finds Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) defending the music of Nickelback against insults lobbed by Fred Savage (who shows up in the re-cut movie to riff on his role from The Princess Bride). The clip would be funny regardless of context, but there’s a second layer to the joke beyond just the idea that Deadpool likes crappy music: Reynolds, like Nickelback, is Canadian.

This is actually the second time Deadpool 2 has come to the rescue of a highly-successful, much-maligned Canadian recording artist: the movie’s James Bond-esque opening credits sequence is accompanied by a Celine Dion ballad. I don’t imagine they got Nickelback to record a new song for Once Upon a Deadpool, but maybe they can get Chad and the gang involved in the inevitable Deadpool 3.