Ryan Reynolds said he gave up his pay and paid from his pocket to ensure that his screenwriters could be on set for the first "Deadpool" movie.
The actor opened up about the humble beginnings of his R-rated superhero franchise before the release of "Deadpool and Wolverine," recalling to The New York Times how they spent several years trying to get the original movie made but, because it was not a typical big-budget comic book movie, it took a while before it finally took off at 20th Century Fox.
"No part of me was thinking when 'Deadpool' was finally greenlit that this would be a success," he said. "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."
Reynolds admitted it "was a lesson in a couple of senses."
"I think one of the great enemies of creativity is too much time and money, and that movie had neither time nor money," he said. "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."
In 2016, as the original "Deadpool" hit theaters, Reese and Wernick revealed that they worked on the script with Reynolds for at least six years.
"It was really a core creative team of us, Ryan, and the director Tim Miller," they added at the time, according to Yahoo! Entertainment. "Fox, interestingly, wouldn't pay for us to be on set. Ryan Reynolds paid out of his own money, out of his own pocket."
Initially, Reese and Wernick were credited for the first "Deadpool" screenplay. However, by the time "Deadpool 2" was released in 2018, Reynolds had officially joined them as a co-writer. For the "Deadpool and Wolverine" film, the writing team has expanded to include Zeb Wells, with Shawn Levy directing, Variety reported.
Zoe Papadakis ✉
Zoe Papadakis is a Newsmax writer based in South Africa with two decades of experience specializing in media and entertainment. She has been in the news industry as a reporter, writer and editor for newspapers, magazine and websites.
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