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(US) R-rated movie to date, with a
global box office take of more than $1
billion. Unsurprisingly, a sequel has
already been greenlit.
Adapted from the Marvel Comics
character created in 1991 by Fabian
Nicieza and Rob Liefeld, the film
tells
the origin story of Wade Wilson (played
by Reynolds), whose terminal cancer is
‘cured’ by the same Weapon X program
that created Wolverine, leaving him
permanently disfigured, but impervious
to pain and able to regenerate when
wounded.
Dubbed “The Merc with a Mouth”,
this potty-mouthed, amoral superhero is
unique among comic book characters in
that he can break the fourth wall – and
Miller had long been a fan.
“When I came on board the project,
the script was already great,” he says.
“It was one of the best scripts I’d ever
read, which was why I wanted to do
it so much. Plus, I’ve been reading
comic books pretty hardcore for the
last 35 years or so. If you came to my
studio, you’d see a giant two-story wall
of bookshelves that house my years
and years of comic book collecting. I’m
primarily a Marvel guy, so of course I’d
read tons of Deadpool.
“Captain America’s very serious
and the X-Men are very serious, but
Deadpool was one of the few that had
a real sense of humour about it and
didn’t take itself so seriously. In my
stack of comic books, it was always
the nice palate cleanser to the more
serious stuff.”
Reynolds shared Miller’s passion for
the character and the fledgling director
is full of praise for his star. “He’s a
brilliant actor, and for a first-timer it’s
really interesting to watch him work.
We’d done the first week of shooting,
and I’m not one of these guys who
thinks I have to know everything, and
I went over to Ryan and said, ‘dude,
what could I be doing better?’ He said,
“Tim, this has been the most satisfying
week of filming I’ve ever had. You don’t
know everything, but at least you don’t
pretend like you do’. We had a really
great experience and there was no
drama on the set.”
Because Deadpool does break the
fourth wall, the film is stacked with
jokes that poke fun at the whole
superhero world – including Fox’s own
stable of characters.
However, Miller says the studio didn’t
interfere and pretty much gave him free
reign. “We got no pushback from Fox
at any point,” he says. “Though I think
they were little prepared for how weird
this movie is!
“There’s some really odd stuff in
there, and tonally it’s all over the map.
I think it does a nice job of balancing
it, but you go from action to tragedy
to weird situation comedy with a blind
black woman in an apartment with
Wade. The biggest thing we’ve had to
adjust in post is to give the audience a
beat to make those transitions.”
And while the long development
process was frustrating, in a cinema
world overloaded with big budget
superhero flicks, the delays probably
ended up helping the film. The first
wave of superhero movies opened
up the world of comic books to a
mainstream audience and now they are
ready for something different.
Miller says: “Now people are familiar
with it and they’re ready to take the
training wheels off the bike and look
to something more aggressive, like
Deadpool
. As much as it’s for the
hardcore fan – and I don’t think we
ever sold out on who the character
is – we’ve also made a real effort to
be inclusive and make it accessible to
people who haven’t read the comic.
Humour, really, builds most of that
bridge. We like to laugh, and this one’s
funny. We’re not packing it too much
with insider references where the
audience will feel stupid if they don’t
get it.
“I want my wife to like the movie,
which is why I made sure that Ryan
took his shirt off a little bit. There’s a
love story there and I think people really
respond to Vanessa’s character. I think
you care about the characters before
they start beating each other up, which
is really important to me.”
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Deadpool
is out now