In Kenneth Branagh’s 2011 fantasy clunker “Thor,” it was explained that the title demigod (Chris Hemsworth) could only lift his magical hammer weapon – called Mjölnir — if he was “worthy.” It’s never quite explained what qualities one must possess in order to be worthy, but it has something to do with honorable behavior, a willingness to make sacrifices, and generally being a decent person. Only once one has proven themselves will they be permitted to pick up the weapon and smash people’s heads into a bloody pulp.
In Joss Whedon’s 2015 superhero mashup “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” Thor dared his superhero co-workers to try lifting the hammer, but because they weren’t worthy, it remained infinitely heavy. Later in the film, the android Vision (Paul Bettany) lifted the hammer, no problem, possibly because he’s an artificial being. Then, in 2019’s “Avengers: Endgame,” Captain America (Chris Evans) was able to fling the hammer around without any issue. (Notably, in the aforementioned scene from “Ultron,” Cap was able to shift Mjölnir in place a little, much to Thor’s consternation, before he seemingly feigned at being “unworthy.”) Furthermore, Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) not only used Mjölnir in 2022’s “Thor: Love and Thunder,” but it magically transformed her into a superhero.
So, as of this writing, only four people have been worthy of using Mjölnir in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (not counting Thor’s dad Odin and the villainess Hela, who smashed it into pieces). It seems, however, that the writers of “Deadpool & Wolverine” almost introduced a fifth. Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, who co-wrote the screenplay with Ryan Reynolds, Shawn Levy, and Zeb Wells, recently spoke with IndieWire about their new hit film, revealing that they almost had Peter (Rob Delaney) pick up Mjölnir without even knowing it.
Peter is worthy
Peter was first introduced in “Deadpool 2” as one of the members of Deadpool’s X-Force, a freelance group of hastily-assembled superbeings. Several of the X-Force members had legitimate superpowers, but Peter was there just because he felt it might be exciting. Peter was simply a friendly, middle-aged white guy with a dippy smile and haircut, eager to participate and fecklessly friendly. He quickly becomes one of Deadpool’s favorite people and a lifelong buddy. Peter reappears in “Deadpool & Wolverine” as well, now Deadpool’s best friend and co-worker. The film is, as we all know by now, a multiverse movie, and it’s announced that every Deadpool from every parallel universe has their own version of Peter … and that he’s deeply beloved everywhere.
It seems there was an early version of “Deadpool & Wolverine” — never actually committed to the page — wherein Thor would have appeared and Peter would have casually played with his hammer in the background of a wide shot. As Reese put it:
“Peter casually picked up Thor’s Hammer in the background. That was the joke. […] Originally, Peter accompanied him there. There were never screenplay pages, but it was the idea of the scene. I remember pitching that he was going to try to get Captain America to swear. I don’t really remember too much else in terms of the details, but yeah, he was going to dress them down to be sure.”
That, of course, would have been rather different from the final version of the film, which has Wade Wilson actually saluting Captain America and geeking out over Thor. It seems like it would have been more in character for the impish Deadpool to pry the f-word from Captain America, and for his buddy to prove himself as honorable as Thor.
Adding Thor would’ve been a logistical nightmare
Indeed, there was going to be a scene wherein all the extant Avengers would be gathered in a room and Deadpool was to insult them all and given them a dressing-down (Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark included) — a scene that would have been far more amusing than Deadpool saluting them.
However, Reese was quick to add, including Captain America and Thor and all the others in “Deadpool & Wolverine” would have been a logistical nightmare. Recall that the film already has a dozen other celebrity cameos — including Chris Evans as the Human Torch — and filming extra scenes with at least additional superhero characters couldn’t be easily scheduled. Reese even felt that the cameos in “Deadpool 2” were hard enough to arrange, saying:
“An impossible schedule! Can you imagine trying to coordinate that? I mean, we lucked out on ‘Deadpool 2.’ We had a cameo with all the X-Men, but they happened to be shooting a movie at the time together. It’s really easy to grab them. Simon Kinberg grabbed them on his set and shot that side of it, but we didn’t have that here and, goodness knows, it would’ve been impossible. That’s sort of like the ‘We Are the World’ documentary where they tried to get Bruce Springsteen and Billy Joel and Cyndi Lauper, Michael Jackson all together at once. Impossible.”
So, the Avengers were left by the wayside and the filmmakers carved out brief shooting windows with Jennifer Garner, Wesley Snipes, Channing Tatum, and multiple others. “Deadpool & Wolverine” has been a hit, so one can only wonder if it would’ve been as big a hit if Deadpool had raised a middle finger to the Avengers instead of wanting to be one of them.
“Deadpool & Wolverine” is now playing in theaters.
