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More than a decade later, we finally know who leaked that infamous “Deadpool” test footage that helped get the movie made. For those who may need a refresher, in August of 2014, some test footage for a proposed “Deadpool” movie shot by director Tim Miller and starring Ryan Reynolds, leaked online. It created a frenzy amongst fans and essentially forced Fox to greenlight the movie. For all this time, nobody owned up to being responsible for the leak. At long last, the guilty party has come forward.
In a recent interview at the Toronto International Film Festival (via Entertainment Weekly), Ryan Reynolds confessed to doing the deed. In the past, it was said that only four people, Miller and Reynolds, along with screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, had access to the footage. So one of them had to be the source of the leak. Now, with a multi-billion-dollar franchise in the books, Reynolds decided it was time to fess up. Here’s what he had to say about it:
“Yes, I cheated a little, but I think I was onto something that people would be interested in. And I’m grateful that I listened to that instinct, and I’m grateful that I did the wrong thing in that moment.”
His instincts were correct, despite Fox’s doubts. “Deadpool” went on to make $782 million at the global box office against a very small $58 million budget. More than that, it proved that R-rated superhero movies could work on the largest scale possible. That, in turn, helped pave the way for movies like “Logan” that would come in the ensuing years. If that test footage hadn’t leaked, none of this might have ever happened. That sounds dramatic but it’s true. Fox seemingly wasn’t going to make the movie and this forced the studio’s hand.
Ryan Reynolds did the wrong thing to do right by Deadpool
“I’d shot test footage for it a couple years before, and the studio just didn’t want anything to do with it,” Reynolds recalled of the footage in question during the interview. “Deadpool’s a fringe character,” the actor added. “People didn’t really know who he was, and I loved him. I was obsessed with it because I loved that he knew he was in a comic book movie. It was kind of meta, it was kind of new. But the test footage existed, and it really was a case study of how this could work. And they just wouldn’t do anything with it.”
Reynolds previously played a version of Deadpool in “X-Men Origins: Wolverine,” which didn’t go over very well, to put it mildly. The actor was committed to getting the character right on screen but, after that test footage sat collecting dust, it was clear nothing was going to happen. So, Reynolds took matters into his own hands. However, as the actor explained during the interview, he did have a moment of panic after it first went down:
“Some a**hole leaks it online and I’m like, you know, 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.”
It’s safe to say, Fox was happy with the outcome. “Deadpool 2” became a similarly huge hit for the studio. More recently, “Deadpool & Wolverine” made more than $1.3 billion at the box office, becoming the highest-grossing R-rated movie of all time. All of that success stems from this act of defiance.
