Ahead of Deadpool & Wolverine’s July 26 release date, star Ryan Reynolds has revealed he paid for writers to be on set out of his own paycheck while filming the first movie.
Speaking to The New York Times, Reynolds commented on the drastically different entertainment landscape the original film launched into, when Deadpool wasn’t a part of the indomitable Marvel Cinematic Universe but instead the less revered X-Men franchise.
“No part of me was thinking when Deadpool was finally greenlit that this would be a success,” Reynolds admitted. “I even let go of getting paid to do the movie just to put it back on the screen. They wouldn’t allow my co-writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick on set, so I took the little salary I had left and paid them to be on set with me so we could form a de facto writers room.”
The experience of shooting under tight restrictions “was a lesson in a couple of senses,” Reynolds said. “I think one of the great enemies of creativity is too much time and money, and that movie had neither time nor money.
“It really fostered focusing on character over spectacle, which is a little harder to execute in a comic book movie. I was just so invested in every micro-detail of it and I hadn’t felt like that in a long, long time. I remembered wanting to feel that more, not just on Deadpool but on anything.”
The first Deadpool became a standout success, however, bringing in $117 million at the box office in its opening weekend and even setting a new record at the time as the biggest debut for an R-rated film ever.
Deadpool & Wolverine, which unsurprisingly stars Reynold’s Deadpool and Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine, will be both characters’ official introductions to the MCU. It’s set to star way more than those two though, with characters such as Lady Deadpool, Sabertooth, Juggernaut, and many more.
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.
