The big reason we have a Deadpool film trilogy is because of leaked test footage for the first movie back in 2014. It’s since become generally agreed upon that leading man Ryan Reynolds probably had something to do with it, and now the actor himself has gone and said he leaked it, yeah.
Talking to Entertainment Weekly at TIFF, Reynolds said the leak may have been “cheating,” but done with the best of intentions. “I think I was onto something that people would be interested in,” he told the outlet. As he and director Tim Miller went about shooting the footage, Fox became squirrely about doing an R-rated superhero movie starring an obscure character, particularly one they’d already done badly once before.
For Reynolds, the appeal of Deadpool was that he wasn’t an upper-tier character, and his fourth wall-breaking self-awareness. “It was kind of new,” he said of the character’s demeanor. “The test footage…really was a case study of how this could work. And they just wouldn’t do anything with it.” When said footage leaked, he recalled thinking about “the asshole [that] leaked it, and I’m looking at the guy in the mirror brushing my teeth. And I’m like, ‘Dude, what have you done? This could be punishable by law!’ But the internet forced the studio to say, ‘We’re gonna make this movie,’ and 24 hours later, that movie had a green light.”
Since the first Deadpool, Reynolds has become a key creative force in the character’s live-action outings, which have gone on to make a lot of money and help start a wave of R-rated superhero material. Now, people know Deadpool like they do Spider-Man (and both may be in the next Avengers movies), and has become the actor’s definitive role. So congrats to Reynolds for his foresight and hustle?
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