When we heard this weekend that Tim Miller had quit the Deadpool sequel due to the all-too-common “creative differences,” we knew something had gone very, very wrong. Miller had clashed with the film’s star Ryan Reynolds, who had been lobbying to get his version of the Merc With a Mouth into theaters since even before his ill-fated attempt at the character in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Reynolds loves the character, and Miller managed to make 15 times the budget of the first movie on its release. So what went wrong? Apparently, the clash that caused Miller to bow out of the sequel came about because two separate groups were campaigning for two entirely different movies.

The Wrap, who has the inside scoop, learned that the sequel plans were already in place well before the first Deadpool was released in theaters. At first, Reynolds, with screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, were planning a “scrappy” and inexpensive movie — much like the first one. But Miller, whose talents lie in visuals and style, wanted a higher budget for the sequel, which he hoped would compete with Marvel’s upcoming superhero blockbusters.

“There were two totally different movies on the table, and one of them just wasn’t Deadpool,” an insider told The Wrap. Ultimately, Reynolds, Reese, and Wernick’s version won — unsurprisingly, since as soon as the studio got wind of the possibility of making serious bank without spending anywhere near as much money as they would for something like X-Men: Apocalypse, for example, the writing was on the wall. Deadpool has only very loose connections to the rest of the X-Men movie universe and he isn’t scheduled to become part of any future installments in that storyline, so why spend tons of money on him when instead they could... not?

None of this was sudden, at least not to the people involved. Insiders said that 20th Century Fox CEO Jim Gianopoulos had acted as a “peacekeeper” between Miller and Reynolds during production of Deadpool, so a clash was probably imminent. Miller quickly moved on, and is now set to direct sci-fi project Influx. Meanwhile, Deadpool 2 doesn’t yet have a release date, but is still casting for Domino, whose shortlist of actresses was rumored just last week.

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