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10 Deadpool Ads That Are Pure Genius


On February 12, 2016, the superhero movie that was years in the making, the one that almost never happened – Deadpool – arrived in theaters, shattering not only expectations but box office records for an R-rated film. Given the quality of the movie, this shouldn’t come as a surprise, but a great deal of Deadpool’s success can also be attributed to the brilliant marketing campaign that drew general audiences to the theaters in the first place and then allowing the positive word of mouth to do the rest.

We here at Epicstream decided to look back at 10 Deadpool ads that are pure GENIUS:

  1. The Burt Reynolds Homage Poster

    This is it – the one that started it all. In May 2015, Ryan Reynolds gave fans their first look at the Merc with a Mouth in full costume by channeling his inner-Burt Reynolds. The photo is an obvious riff on the infamous 1972 Burt Reynolds nude spread from Cosmopolitan, right down to the bearskin rug. In fact, just to make the comparison clear, Reynolds tweeted a photo of the original Cosmo image less than an hour later.

  2. The Tinder Account

    Even users of the popular dating app Tinder weren’t immune to Deadpool’s marketing, as evidenced by the Merc with a Mouth’s hilarious profile. Referring to himself as a “Semi-professional bad guy ‘un-aliver’,” Deadpool provided several enticing photos used in previously released movie posters to try and sway fellow users to swipe right.  

  3. The Testicular Cancer PSA

    Despite his predilection for violence, Deadpool still has his fair share of heroic moments. However, even this PSA for testicular cancer prevention is completely riddled with Wade’s unique brand of off-color humor, as he encourages his fellow men to check for lumps in their lower regions by “touching themselves.” Comedy aside, though, the video is actually very educational, and he even did one for breast cancer, as well, though it isn’t quite as funny as the original.

  4. The Valentine’s Day Billboard

    With a February 12 release date, Deadpool had the potential to take a slight opening weekend hit due to couples not wanting to see a raunchy, violent, R-rated superhero movie on their Valentine’s Day weekend. However, thanks to Ryan Reynolds’ rom-com background and this cleverly designed poster, there were certainly a handful of men who were able to trick their significant others into seeing Deadpool under the guise that it was actually a romance film. Don’t believe us? A simple Google search will quickly reveal the text message screenshots to back this up. 

  5. The Fantastic Four Trailer

    2015’s Fantastic Four was a complete and utter disaster, both critically and financially. However, 20th Century Fox wasn’t banking on that being the case when they released an extended trailer for the movie that summer, and to the studio’s credit, it was a brilliant move to have the Merc with a Mouth hijack the final moments of it to hype up the impending Deadpool trailer. Of course, this did little to actually help Fantastic Four at the box office, but it definitely captured Deadpool’s metatextual sense of humor and gave casual fans a taste of what was in store for them the following year.

  6. Skull Poop L

    Speaking of metatextual humor, it doesn’t get a whole lot more meta than the “Skull Poop L” billboard and the subsequent banner. The initial billboard used emojis to spell out Deadpool by using a skull emoji for “Dead,” a poop emoji for “poo,” and the letter “L” for… well, the letter “L.” Taking the billboard far more literally than most, Ryan Reynolds followed it up with a banner for his upcoming film, Skullpoopl, which is 100% something Deadpool would actually do.

  7. The April Fool’s Day Rating Announcement

    Not every superhero movie needs an R-rating, but some absolutely do. Deadpool is one of those movies, so when Ryan Reynolds was interviewed on Extra and confirmed that the film would be rated PG-13, it immediately raised red flags. However, this being April 1 when the “interview” was released, we quickly learned it was simply an April Fool’s Day prank when a fully costumed Deadpool arrived on the Extra set and “killed” Mario Lopez before reassuring fans that the film would, in fact, be rated R. 

  8. The Trailer For The Trailer

    Nowadays, teasers for upcoming trailers are becoming more and more commonplace, but Ryan Reynolds managed to put a hilarious spin on this practice. Using a trailer-esque narration voice, Reynolds hypes up “the studio that inexplicably sewed his fucking mouth shut the first time” in X-Men Origins: Wolverine and refers to himself as a “five-time Academy Award-viewing actor” before informing fans that the actual trailer would arrive the following day. 

  9. How Deadpool Spent Halloween

    The How Deadpool Spent Halloween video was nothing short of amazing. In it, we see a fully costumed Ryan Reynolds meet up with a group of children dressed as various X-Men for Halloween, as he debates whether or not they have what it takes to join his team. Asking such questions as “How many of you have taken a human life?” Reynolds is in full-on Deadpool mode and the fact that the video uses kids to interact with the vulgar vigilante makes it all the more humorous.

  10. The 12 Days Of Deadpool

    To promote Deadpool and get fans into the holiday spirit, Ryan Reynolds treated us to the 12 Days of Deadpool, where for the 12 days heading into Christmas, Reynolds would share hilarious holiday-themed images and videos. Among the items shared were a comically annotated page from the Deadpool script and Deadpool’s Christmas list, but arguably the best thing we got was The ‘Pool Log: a 69-minute video of a burning brown paper bag (presumably filled with fecal matter) on a stoop while beautiful Christmas music played in the background. And to answer your question, no… nothing happened at the end of the video. 

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