Ryan Reynolds claims Disney shot down a Deadpool crossover with Bambi

Ryan Reynolds has said he pitched a Deadpool and Bambi crossover to Disney, who turned it down.

"I wanted to do a short film of Deadpool interrogating the hunter who killed Bambi's mom," Reynolds explained to IGN. "But the whole gist of it is that Deadpool is actually just a huge fan. He's not interrogating – he just wants to know how he could be the most loathed Disney character in the history of Disney... and of course, Disney was like, 'well, I don't think that's ever going to happen.'"

It's not surprising that Disney turned down a crossover with the character who devastated children (and adults) everywhere in Bambi, but, following the failed pitch, Reynolds went back with the idea for the Deadpool and Korg crossover to promote his upcoming movie Free Guy.

"Then we came back to them – we wrote the Deadpool-Korg piece... and we sent it to them, and they said, 'yes!'," Reynolds said. "So, my next call was to Taika [Waititi] and Taika was in. He's also in Free Guy so it wasn't that hard... Taika's an actual genius so I was thrilled to collaborate with him as this kind of character."

The crossover video marks Deadpool's entry to the MCU. A third Deadpool movie is currently in the works, and Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige has said it will be R-rated. It's probably a good thing that the Merc with a Mouth wasn't given the chance to enter the Disney-verse, though, because we can only imagine the kind of mayhem he would bring to the studio's catalogue of beloved animated movies...

Free Guy, meanwhile, follows Reynolds' titular character Guy, who discovers he's an NPC in a video game, and goes about becoming a hero. The movie releases this August 13 – until then, check out our guide to all of 2021's upcoming movie release dates.