After breaking box office records, Ryan Reynolds returns as Deadpool and this time the Merc with the Mouth’s movie is bigger and more badass than ever.
David Leitch, director of John Wick and Atomic Blonde, is at the helm to bring more stunts, more style and more action. Leitch says, “I’ve had the honour and privilege to help create a couple of different cool universes, but there’s something that’s undeniably fascinating about the Deadpool universe — it reimagined the action-comedy. The original was so special, and the world itself seems to be so expansive that you could have a creative voice and still be true to the original.”
Deadpool debuted in February 2016 with the biggest R-rated opening of all time and went on to be the highest-grossing R-rated film in history with more than $750 million globally. Deadpool was also honoured as the first live-action superhero movie to be nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Picture in the Comedy or Musical category, and Ryan Reynolds was also nominated as Best Actor.
Ryan Reynolds not only stars in the title role, he also co-wrote and produced Deadpool 2. “Ryan is an incredible comedic talent,” says Leitch, “and Deadpool works as a perfect ground for things he really excels at. He took that character from the comic books and made it his own brand.
AN APPLE AMONG ORANGES
Writers and executive producers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, who also wrote the first film, have been involved with Deadpool since 2009. “It feels like we’ve been living with him our whole lives,” says Wernick. Reynolds approached Reese and Wernick to write the screenplay for the original Deadpool and Reese recalls, “It took us five or six years of an uphill climb to get the movie made and it was very much a passion project in a way that is usually reserved for things like independent films or little movies that can’t get financed. Deadpool is an apple among oranges, when it comes to superheroes. He is irreverent. He is self-loathing. He is silly, childlike, violent, annoying. He’s a lot of things that other superheroes aren’t and he’s not really even a superhero. He’s kind of an anti-hero in superhero garb.”
“Deadpool is sort of like the Hunchback of Notre Dame,” says Leitch. “He’s disfigured and incredibly empathetic. He’s got a great backstory. There’s the wish fulfilment of a guy who has these healing powers. He’s kind of invincible. He says dark, funny bold shit that you can’t say, but we like to hear. That mixture is great for a character.”
Wernick adds, “Deadpool is a self-deprecating, self-hating shame-spiral. We just fell in love with it. To have had Ryan’s voice in our heads the whole time, as we were writing, was such a privilege. He is Deadpool. His mind works and thinks and speaks as one character. It really is a treat for us to sit down at the computer and write for him.”
“Ryan is very much Deadpool in the sense that his sense of humour is in line with Deadpool’s,” says Reese. “It’s very raunchy and edgy and silly and immature. He was just the perfect fit for it and he knew that. He was in love with the character before we ever got the first movie going. Among the many things he brings to it is the physicality, making Deadpool funny behind his mask and suit. Ryan is very Chaplinesque. He can do a lot with his body and gestures to convey humour and personality so, despite the fact that you see his face only in about half the movie, he really is able to communicate comedy just through his voice and through his mannerisms.”
FUNNY, IRREVERENT AND HIGH ON ACTION
“We flew under the radar on the first one,” says Wernick. “On this one, it was quite the opposite. The pressure was immense. Every little detail that came out in the press became a massive story. All these little nuggets that leaked out over time made us realise that the expectations are enormous. As long as it makes us laugh and there are tears coming from our eyes, and those are tears of happiness, we feel like we’re in good shape.”
“The beauty of Deadpool is, the more obscure the reference, the funnier it is.” Leitch adds, “In making a sequel, you have to be true to the material and the script. The script that Ryan, Rhett and Paul came up with has its own heart and soul. As a storyteller, you want to make sure that you’re true to that, and then you have to be true to the DNA of the original franchise that was so successful. There’s the satire and the irreverence of the R-rated comedy, and this over-the-top action. And then you have to find a voice as a filmmaker and make it your own. That’s the biggest challenge — you don’t want to alienate an audience. With my background, there may be expectation that the action is going to be bigger, so you have to service those things. What other universe allows you to do that more than Deadpool? You can make big choices and apologise for them with one fourth-wall break. That’s what’s cool about the source material. They break the rules.”
“David really gets Deadpool,” says Reese. “He’s one of the best action directors in the world, and he amps the action like crazy.”
“Action is a huge element of Deadpool,” Wernick adds, “and we’ve got one of the best in David Leitch. He makes everybody else’s action look like dated ’80s movies. The action in Deadpool 2 is brilliant. It’s going to be jaw-dropping.”
WHEN THEY GO LOW
Deadpool does not take the genre seriously, and it also doesn’t take itself seriously,” says Reese. “In this movie, Ryan Reynolds makes fun of himself. He makes fun of the writing. He makes fun of Fox. He makes fun of all the things associated with the franchise, so it softens those jokes about other people when we’re also willing to make jokes about ourselves.”
“Ryan Reynolds is a comic genius,” says Reese. “One of his many facets of comedic genius is his willingness to go places that are just shy of objectionable. When Paul came up with the soap dispenser bit, I was like ‘Oh no’ and then of course ‘Oh yes,’ that’s just perfect. Our political phrase isn’t “When they go low, we go high.” Ours is, “when they go low, we go lower.” We’re willing to go all the way, dig all the way down to get a laugh.”
And just to clarify the writers’ individual senses of humour, while Wernick came up with the soap dispenser gag, Reese contributed the ‘toilet paper’ treatise, which happens later in the film. Reese admits, “I have a toilet paper manifesto of my own, about the inadequacy of toilet paper. I do this bit about it, and I did it for Ryan. We all looked at each other and said, ‘This has to go into the movie somehow’. Then we discussed what calibre actor would we need to do such a scene.” Finding the right thespian who could deliver that passage was a challenge, to say the least.
THE SECRET SAUCE
Wernick says, “Deadpool is known as a comedy, but there’s a real beating heart to it. The secret sauce of Deadpool is this emotional core. It’s a character that’s been kicked and knocked down, and life’s been really tough on him, as a character with cancer and this terrible scarring on his face. I think kids related to Spider-Man because it was a nerdy little kid, and then he put on the mask and he was this amazing superhero. And I think people tap into Wade Wilson because they see a character whose life has been tough and he somehow overcomes it all, laughs about it and wins in the end.”
“The make-up is such an ordeal,” says Wernick, referring to the prosthetic make-up Reynolds wears as scarred Wade Wilson. “We built schedules around how quickly we could get Ryan out of it because it’s oppressive. It takes hours to put on, and he’s uncomfortable in it, and he’s got to act underneath this pile of plastic. How impossible is it to emote when you’ve got this prosthetic basically stapled to your face? And yet, he does it brilliantly. It’s really a credit to Ryan and his abilities as an actor to act behind that mask. He is the voice of this movie.”
Wernick notes that for some people, “Comics are like the Bible. You better stick to exactly how that character is in the comics. What’s so great about the comics, though, is that because there are different writers that come in and out of a series, a character could die here and then come back to life. We’re allowed a little flexibility in how we treat a character. I think our goal as writers isn’t to mimic any particular writer of the comics, it’s to get the flavour and feel and texture of a character, and his or her voice, and then bring it to the screen in our own original way.”
He adds, “The script is pretty much our Bible. It gives us the launching pad and we get what’s on the page. But there’s always the ad-libs and the improv that all of the actors contribute to. When you have these brilliant comedic minds at your disposal, you use them.”
