Rumors so far have been dismissive of a previous developer of the game, so presumably the studio could have done with a lot less money.

Chris Baker was working in Marvel’s video game division when Deadpool was released. It was rumored that he needed $100 million to make the game, a staggering amount in 2013, and we wouldn’t have thought that Activision’s High Moon Studios would have received that much money to make the superhero’s adventures a reality. We have no official details on how much budget they had. Wikipedia’s page lies about it, and GameSpot’s 2015 listings couldn’t confirm that the project was expensive.

Baker wrote on Twitter that 100 million is a ridiculous exaggeration. He didn’t know the actual amount either, but he thinks $100 million would have been the level of Grand Theft Auto at the time. He’s not wrong. In 2008, Grand Theft Auto IV producer Leslie Benzies told the Times that the game was made for $100 million at the time. (By comparison, 2013’s Grand Theft Auto V was even more expensive.)

My challenge to game journalists, just in time for Deadpool and Wolverine: Squash the insane rumor that the Deadpool game cost $100 million.
It's crazy how many people are out there all "how could this possibly have cost so much?!"…when it obviously didn't. Not even close. pic.twitter.com/gvxynBH2fE

— Chris Baker | ScorpionVader.com (@cbake76) July 22, 2024

There’s a joke in Deadpool about the game spinning the stated amount by millions of dollars in seconds, but it’s just a joke, and Baker thinks that might have been the basis for the $100 million. Maybe all it would have taken to start the rumor without knowing the truth was for someone to state as fact an amount they made up. Maybe that’s what happened. In any case, Deadpool wasn’t that outstanding at the time. It was average, nothing more, but it was fun for a playthrough. It was mostly linear, so there wasn’t a lot of content in it, and it came out for the PlayStation 3/Xbox 360 pair (there was a later re-release, but that’s irrelevant now).

But it’s really weird that there’s a game we know about, but no one wants to talk about how much money it was made with. Maybe it was a cheaper licensing project, and that would be the most reasonable answer.

Source:PCGamer, Wikipédia, GameSpot, Times