Originally published January 31, 2016. Updated November 29, 2022.
After more than a decade in development, 20th Century Fox finally gave the green light to Deadpool in 2014, after some early test footage leaked online and sent the internet into a frenzy. Appearing on The Graham Norton Show (via Comic Book), star Ryan Reynolds discussed the overwhelmingly positive fan reaction to the test footage, and revealed that it took less than 24 hours from the leak for the studio to give them the go ahead.
“Deadpool has been the best and worst relationship I’ve ever been in,” said Reynolds. “Eleven years, I’ve been trying to get this movie made. We had a script, we did that about six years ago, then we had a little bit of test footage for the movie. That test footage sat on a shelf at Fox for four years, then about a year and a half ago, somebody accidentally leaked it on the Internet….And it just went nuts. The people started writing and flooding Fox, begging and pleading for the Deadpool movie to get made. Within twenty-four hours, we had a green light. We were making it.”
SEE ALSO: Deadpool, Colossus and Negasonic Teenage Warhead battle Angel Dust in new Deadpool clip
Based upon Marvel Comics’ most unconventional anti-hero, DEADPOOL tells the origin story of former Special Forces operative turned mercenary Wade Wilson, who after being subjected to a rogue experiment that leaves him with accelerated healing powers, adopts the alter ego Deadpool. Armed with his new abilities and a dark, twisted sense of humor, Deadpool hunts down the man who nearly destroyed his life.
SEE ALSO: Follow all of our Deadpool coverage here
Deadpool is set for release on February 10th in the UK and February 12th in the States and sees Ryan Reynolds reprising the role of the Merc with a Mouth alongside T.J. Miller (Transformers: Age of Extinction) as Weasel, Morena Baccarin (Gotham) as Copycat, Gina Carano (Fast & Furious 6) as Angel Dust, Ed Skrein (Game of Thrones) as Ajax, Stefan Kapicic (24) as Colossus, Leslie Uggams (Roots) as Blind Al and newcomer Brianna Hildebrand as Negasonic Teenage Warhead.
