After 11 years, fans still think the Deadpool game cost $100 million to make, but one of the original devs says that's ridiculous - "$100 million is GTA-level money"

Deadpool 2009 game screenshot
(Image credit: Activision)

Rumors have persisted for years that the 2013 Deadpool game somehow cost publisher ꧒Activision over $100 million to develop and market. That's not an unheard-of number for the development of a major video game, but it's way out of scope for what you would expect from a licensed title of the era, and one of the game's original developers is trying to put the rumors to rest once and for all.

"My challenge to game journalists, just in time for Deadpool and Wolverine: Squash the insane rumor that the Deadpool game cost $100 million,"🍬 Chris Baker, manager of licensed games for Marvel at the time of Deadpool's release, says on . (Challenge accepted, by the way.) "It's crazy how many people are out there all 'how couꦕld this possibly have cost so much?!'...when it obviously didn't. Not even close." 

In the thread that follows, Baker tries to track down the source of the claims about Deadpool's budget, but, well… there doesn't really seem to be a source. Instead, there are just a bunch of listicles and YouTube videos repeating the claim that the game cost $100 million to make, b🔥ut none of them actually point to the origin of that idea.

As the folks at note, the closest thing to an origin for that budget estimate seems to be a joke wit൲hin the game, where Deadpool himself suggests the game is going over-budget with an increasingly ridiculous money counter - but that counter stops around $7.5 million.

"I wasn't privℱy to the actual budget," Baker says in a , "but $100 million is GTA-level money, at least back then." And, in fact, the then (relatively) recent Grand Theft Auto 4 was estimated to have cost $100 million - an by the game's own producer.

While Marvel games like Insomniac's Spider-Man titles are among the biggest, most lavishly produced AAA games out there today, the scene for superhero games was quite a bit different in 2013. Deadpool launched to mediocre reviews, and while fans of the character have given it something of a cult classic reputation, it ꦐwas never a notable standout in the sea of mid-budget license๊d action games that were coming out at the time.

In fact, the Deadpool game's greatest notoriety likely comes from just how hard it is to get ahold of these days. The original PS3 and Xbox 360 versions were delisted just a year after launch, and while the game got an updated re-release in 2015 for PS4 and Xbox One, those versions were also delisted two years later. There are plenty of physical copies all over eBay, but the PS4 version in particular is starting to command a substantial premium, with complete copies selling for well over $100. With prices having taken a particularly dramatic spike over the past few months, it seems the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Deadpool and Wolverine hype has gamers feeling nostalgic.

There are a lot of 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming Marvel games to keep track of, and given the pedigree of the AAA studios making them several of these titles could certainly top $100 million in development costs. 

Dustin Bailey
Staff Writer

Dustin Bailey joined the GamesRadar team as a Staff Writer in May 2022, and is currently based in Missouri. He's been covering games (with occasional dalliances in the worlds of anime and pro wrestling) since 2015, first as a freelancer, ♋then as a news writer at PCGamesN for nearly five year🧸s. His love for games was sparked somewhere between Metal Gear Solid 2 and Knights of the Old Republic, and these days you can usually find him splitting his entertainment time between retro gaming, the latest big action-adventure title, or a long haul in American Truck Simulator.