The story of how the man with the metal skeleton got the metal skeleton, told as a prequel to everything.
It goes back to James Howlett as a child, through a century of wars alongside his half-brother Victor Creed, into William Stryker’s Team X, and finally into the Weapon X programme where adamantium is bonded to his bones. On paper that is the most requested backstory in the series.
The production was troubled: weather delays, an incomplete cut leaking online before release, and a version of Deadpool that its own eventual film would spend a scene disowning. It is the least loved entry here and the hardest to skip, because so much of what comes later assumes you saw it.
Show detailsThe Deadpool problem
Ryan Reynolds plays Wade Wilson here, and by the third act the character has his mouth sewn shut. When Reynolds returned to the role in Deadpool in 2016, the new film treated that version as a mistake to be mocked rather than a history to honour, which is why reference works can accurately say he was reprising the role while the film itself refuses to accept it.
Who is in it
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Facts last checked on Sep 7, 2026
Released: May 1, 2009