Henry Cavill’s incredible cameo in Deadpool & Wolverine highlights the pitfalls of the DCEU while shifting the blame away from Zack Snyder.
Deadpool & Wolverine featured a number of surprising cameos, including Henry Cavill as Wolverine, allowing for Wade Wilson to make a hilarious joke at the expense of Marvel’s rival studio. Deadpool & Wolverine has seen massive success since its recent release and has helped to get the MCU back on track following a shaky few years after Avengers: Endgame. Following Deadpool & Wolverine’s ending, its unclear when Wade Wilson or Logan will return to the MCU, but the film’s success makes that happening essentially guaranteed.
Deadpool & Wolverine includes a huge number of Easter eggs, making it somewhat hard to keep track of all of them. However, Henry Cavill appearing as Wolverine was a particularly memorable moment, even compared to the high bar set by other Deadpool & Wolverine cameos, setting up a great joke for viewers that know Cavill’s history of playing a different superhero for a different movie studio. The joke also works by not dragging Zack Snyder into things, instead opting to highlight the failings of Warner Bros. and how they handled Henry Cavill as Superman and the face of the DCEU.
Deadpool & Wolverine’s Henry Cavill Superman Joke Doesn’t Target Zack Snyder
It’s easy to point fingers at Zack Snyder’s depiction of the Man of Steel, and his vision for the DCEU, as one of the reasons that the universe failed, but Warner Brothers is also to blame, and could be argued even more so.
In Deadpool & Wolverine, there is a montage of Wade Wilson going through the multiverse in search of a new Wolverine to replace the one who died in his universe. One of the universes he stumbles upon plays on the casting rumors of Henry Cavill being the MCU Wolverine that have existed for years, making the fan hope a reality in the movie. In classic Deadpool fashion, the antihero is very excited about Henry Cavill being Wolverine, and takes shots at Warner Brothers and their treatment of him as Superman for the DCEU, saying they could treat him better “than the studio down the street.”
Henry Cavill had a turbulent history as Superman for the DCEU, never properly getting a sequel film and being relegated to the background following the failure of Justice League in 2017. It’s easy to point fingers at Zack Snyder’s depiction of the Man of Steel, and his vision for the DCEU, as one of the reasons that the universe failed – but focusing on him alone instead of Warner Bros avoids looking at the bigger picture. Focusing the joke on the studio instead of Snyder evades this, and highlights how Warner Bros. wasted such a good casting in Cavill.
