This summer, Marvel released their latest film Deadpool & Wolverine, starring Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman in their titular superhero roles. The film appears to be quite the dynamic combination bound for success: two Marvel universes coming together, throwing in some comedic quips, action scenes and everything in between. What else could one ask for?

And it certainly was quite the box office success. Upon the trailer’s release, it quickly broke records worldwide, becoming one of the most viewed trailers of all time, reportedly gaining 365 million views within 24 hours. The trailers they released to promote the film were punchy and edgy, giving viewers an idea of the film they were about to see in theaters. And when the time came for the movie to be released, it struck gold, rapidly becoming the top R-rated summer blockbuster of 2024, reportedly earning over one billion dollars within the first three weeks of its release.

What makes the Deadpool franchise unique is that the films tend to take a more unorthodox and comedic approach compared to the traditional superhero films we tend to see on screen. Knowing this, we wanted to use our facial coding to better understand how audiences truly responded towards the trailer. Combined with survey questions we asked after viewing the trailer, we were able to bridge the gap between conscious and nonconscious responses to provide a fuller picture of how people engaged with the content.

Overall, the trailer had a little bit of everything for everyone

Superheroes, action, comedy–what’s not to like? There was a lot to unpack in the trailer, and using facial coding, we can easily identify which scenes were most emotionally engaging, and what might not have worked with everyone. Looking at the Smile expression trace (below), we can see people were positively engaged, with some noticeable peaks during key moments, starting from Deadpool’s opening line “Hi Peanut” when greeting Wolverine at the bar.

Smiles were high during moments with Deadpool and Wolverine together on screen – it quickly becomes evident to viewers watching the trailer that in this comedy double-act, Wolverine is the “straight man” while Deadpool comes in with his clever remarks and sass. That combined with Madonna’s Like a Prayer and the “big slow motion action sequence’, the trailer had a lot to offer. 

“The one rule”: Transforming an inside joke into a creative hook 

At the end of the trailer, Deadpool talks with Blind Al, making light euphemisms to reference cocaine, sprinkling in terminologies such as “snowboarding”, “disco dust”, and “do you want to build a snowman”, as Deadpool comments that “cocaine is the one thing Feige said it was off limits.” This is in reference to Kevin Feige, film producer and president of Marvel Studios who instructed the writers that the one thing that they could not mention is cocaine usage – which they then turned into a clever scene in the movie.  

True Marvel fans were able to notice the Kevin Feige name drop, whereas others were still positively engaged even if they did not fully understand the context. The scene stands alone well – smiles (below) were high for everyone, including those who would not consider viewing the film once released. And with the scene’s placement at the very end, it rounds out the strong content with a humorous touch, creating a memorable moment to get the audience eager to watch the movie in theaters.

...but edgy humor is not for everyone!

What made Deadpool & Wolverine truly a success is how it keeps humor and discomfort balanced–truly making it an edgy piece of content. The humor in the dialogue and banter between Deadpool and Wolverine equalizes the discomfort generated by the violence, gore and swearing for most people–and especially for those who would want to see the film in theaters. We can see that those who would strongly consider viewing the movie show a balance of both discomfort (shown by average Brow Furrow) and amusement (shown by average Smiles) below.

For those not used to the pacing and cinematic style of Deadpool or superhero movies, it proved to be a challenge to get into the storyline and overlook the profanities. Those who claimed that they would not consider watching the film showed signs disliking the content, evident by the much higher levels of Brow Furrow and lower levels of Smiles.  The discomfort outweighed the humor for these viewers, which was further evidenced by open-ended responses that ranged from being uncomfortable with profanities & violence, to the music choice that impacted the overall viewing experience for a minority.  

Despite all this, given the success of the trailer and overall enjoyment, it’s clear that the trailer does work for most people.   

Our verdict?  LFG! 

From our results, we see that the Deadpool & Wolverine trailer was effective in keeping the audience engaged from start to finish.  The critical key to its success was that the trailer had movement, always changing things up with violence, humor, language, while keeping along with the storyline and giving people context.  And given box office results, it’s evident that Deadpool & Wolverine will be one of the top hits for Disney and Marvel this year.  

Edgy humor – depending on how it’s used – can certainly polarize audiences. We’ve previously explored edgy humor when applied in a light and whimsical way in advertising, but what we see here in the Deadpool & Wolverine trailer is different.  In this situation, the strong elements here are more extreme, involving violence and gore. From our perspective, while a minority of the audience were not the biggest fans of the trailer, it still proves to be a strong performer with most of the audience, maintaining the balance between comedy & coarseness and getting people eager to go watch the film in theaters.  Implementing solutions such as facial coding can help to uncover these detailed emotional insights to enable increased viewability and marketability of entertainment content.