While Ryan Reynolds and Tim Miller are widely acknowledged as the pair that helped get the hugely successful Deadpool off the ground, it seems there was another Hollywood twosome that assisted in getting the film the green light; directors James Cameron and David Fincher. According to co-screenwriter Rhett Reese, the unwavering support from the two directors helped convince Fox to go ahead with the project, though Fox aimed for a PG-13 rating at first. “They read the script each of them at two independent key moments during the script's development” said Reese.“And each one of them was kind enough to go to 20th Century Fox and essentially throw in their good word just saying 'Hey, what are you guys doing with Deadpool? You should be making this!' David was a help before Jim and he was just kind of nudging along the way. And then Jim ultimately weighed in in a key decision node moment and got Fox to free up some money to try a PG-13 draft at the time - that was not Jim's idea, that was Fox's idea. But I think a project that is dormant often just suffers from neglect, and I think having those powerful people weigh in at certain times just lodged with Fox and I think it had a cumulative effect more than anything.”
Director Tim Miller also had high praise for Cameron and Fincher: “First of all they're probably mad at me for ever having... because that was never intended to be public knowledge! Listen - the industry listens to tastemakers and you could not find two gentlemen who have better taste in what should become a movie or be made into a movie and so I just thought that maybe they could help push the boulder up the hill a little bit, which they kindly did.” It's great to know the Merc with a Mouth had his fair share of support behind-the-scenes. Given the film's massive success as the highest-grossing X-Men film to date, Fox is probably very grateful for their input. Deadpool is now released digitally and on Blu-ray.