The superhero genre is a powerful force in the entertainment industry, but several franchises stand out and bring something completely original. An illustrative example: “Deadpool,” which proved that an R-rated comic book movie can still make a ton of money at the box office. And Ryan Reynolds can’t stop, won’t stop joking about the leaked footage of Deadpool.
The first two Deadpool films were a huge success with critics and box office receipts, but they were not always guaranteed. Ryan Reynolds had a hard time selling Merc with the Mouth, but everything changed when a test video leaked online and the public went crazy. Reynolds has been making fun of the leak for a long time, not very subtly hinting that he posted the footage himself. And in a recent conversation at the Cannes Lions (via Deadline), the actor, screenwriter and producer once again ridiculed the infamous leak, saying:
I spent 10 years trying to make a Deadpool movie — it was hell. We shot test shots, some bastard leaked them to the Internet, and a movie was made based on them.
He’s not wrong. Ryan Reynolds made his debut as Wade Wilson back in 2009 in the movie “X-Men: The Beginning: Wolverine”, although the portrayal of the character did not impress comic book fans. It wasn’t until 2016 that the original Deadpool movie finally hit theaters and became a sensation. And this is at least partly due to the test footage that appeared on the Internet.
Ryan Reynolds’ comments about Deadpool’s path to cinemas help show how difficult the process of making a movie can be. If this is not a proven method, studios may not want to finance the film. In the end, Ryan Reynolds’ superhero movie (and its sequel) was a huge success, but its budget was only a fraction of what is required to implement projects such as Avengers: Finale. In the same story, Reynolds addressed this discrepancy by saying:
The studio [20th Century Fox] never really believed in it, so they gave us absolutely nothing compared to other comic films. We had to make every dollar feel like ten. While we were doing this, I was learning lessons from the left, right and center. We started to really get to know and play with the cultural landscape of the character. During the movie, we replaced the spectacle with character, and I saw that it worked just as well.
Flourish. What the first “Deadpool” lacked in large-scale scenery was compensated by Ryan Reynolds’ trademark sense of humor and the main character’s tendency to break the fourth wall. Add to that the various punches aimed at both the DCEU and the MCU, and the audience was sold out. And after the huge success of the film, the budget of the sequel doubled. And so more Marvel characters were added, including Juggernaut.
It’s currently unclear when “Deadpool 3” will start production or be released, but fans are excited to see that the mercenary with the mouth has finally joined the MCU. In the meantime, check out the movie’s release dates in 2022 to plan your next movie.
