It seems like the script is in a pretty good place, going by the rave reviews the leaked copy got a couple years ago. They're just held up on the production side of things in terms of budget versus the creative freedom to maintain a hard R rating.
Could they even do that without Sony's lawyers jumping all over them like a pack of dogs on a three legged cat?
Sony made references to Doctor Strange, and X-Men had that Spider-Man gag- and here it'd be used as a joke, so it would probably fall under parody at worst.
The leaked 2010 Deadpool script is pretty solid for a modern action comedy movie with some pathos and a lot of Amy Winehouse jokes that are so going to have to be rewritten.
I'm only guessing, but I could totally see them keeping just about anything and just covering it up by breaking the fourth wall/using the head voices. Deadpool: (insert Amy joke) White Voice: Dude! Yellow Voice: NOT cool! Deadpool: What? Yellow Voice: Didn't you hear what happened? Deadpool: No! White Voice: Yes, you did! Deadpool: I didn't ! Yellow Voice: You knew because we knew! Deadpool: Oh, hey, yeah, you're right! NOT cool!
Well, Leaked script spoiler (Move your mouse to reveal the content) Leaked script spoiler (open) Leaked script spoiler (close) a literal "dead pool" about Amy Winehouse's death is one of the movie's best running jokes. They'll have to change it to Lindsay Lohan or something.
1. Spider-Man 2 was released in 2004, long before anyone took the idea of a singular Marvel cinematic universe seriously. None of the studios really cared about Dr. Strange anymore....he wasn't an A-Lister. 2. The Spider-Man X-Men gag does not count, since it was a stagehand running around in a cheap Party City-quality Spidey costume to make everyone laugh, and was only available in the gag reel for the DVD release. What you described sounds more like an actual cameo. Which is not completely unheard of (the Millennium Falcon parked outside a diner at the end of Spaceballs), but the question is would Sony be so willing to allow Fox to use Spidey's mask like that? And if so, would Fox be willing to shell out license fees for a few seconds of screen time?
It wouldn't be the actual character though- it'd be like any movie filming in a halloween costume store that just happened to have a Spider-Man mask on the shelf (or being worn by a 5 year old). You don't think Marvel could put a Spider-Man statue or action figure in an Avengers film as a visual gag? So long as it wasn't implying the character actually existed as a living character within the Avengerverse? Especially considering how they almost did an ASM/Avengers crossover with Osborn Tower, I don't see this being a problem. And I don't think SM2's release date is of any consequence- the rights to characters are the rights to characters. Marvel was still actively reclaiming and/or selling character rights here and there. They knew there wasn't going to be an X-Men/Spidey crossover. They also knew they didn't have the rights to Doctor Strange.
