Deadpool was trapped in development hell for a number of years, in no small part thanks to his botched introduction in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. As time went on, it became one of those movies which it was hard to imagine EVER becoming a reality (regardless of how much fans wanted it to). However, when some test footage mysterously found its way online last year, Fox finally realised just how huge the demand for a Deadpool movie was, and it would get the green light and a release date shortly after. Talking to Yahoo! Movies recently, Reynolds credited that leak with making the movie happen, saying it was down to, "Exclusively the leaked test footage, 100 percent."
As for how that teaser ended up online, Reynolds claims to be as in the dark as the rest of us! "The initial [leak] came from Fox they think — someone recorded the footage on their iPhone and then released it. And then once that happened, somebody hacked into Blurred Studios and got the original footage in high-res and put it online." A likely story! Reynolds and everyone involved had no problem with the test reel being shared online, especially as the status of the movie at the time was not good. "I was excited, because you can look back at an email chain from all of us, the core group involved in Deadpool, saying 'We should leak this, f***er,' like three years ago. Saying, 'Hey, if this thing is going to stagnate, one of us should just say 'Whoops, I slipped it online by accident.' And nobody seemed to want to nut up and do that, myself included. Someone did it for us, years later, when we all completely assumed it was dead in the water."
Reynolds would miss out on leading a very different superhero franchise of course when Green Lantern flopped at the box office and received a mixed response from fans and critics alike. He's obviously hoping for better things from Deadpool, and reveals that there's one major difference with this movie that the DC Comics adaptation simply didn't have. "When we shot Green Lantern, nobody auditioning for the role of Green Lantern was given the opportunity to read the script, because the script didn’t exist. I’m not complaining about it — it was an opportunity of a lifetime, and if I were to go back and retrace my steps, I would probably do everything the exact same way. But script, that’s what’s different on this one." What do you think about these comments?
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