For a while there, feelings of fear and potential disappointment crept in for many fans when soft rumors floated around that Ryan Reynolds and his increasingly busy schedule may not allow for him to play the title role in the production of X-Men: Deadpool for Twentieth Century Fox.

A spinoff of X-Men Origins: Wolverine, while having nothing to do with it as a quasi-reboot of the character's origins, Deadpool is one of several Marvel properties in development at Fox. It hit a bit of a roadblock when shortly after being greenlit, star Ryan Reynolds also nabbed the lead role in Green Lantern, the big budget superhero movie from Warner Bros. and DC Entertainment. Could he pull off playing two lead comic book characters from two rival comic book companies and studios at the same time?

Of course, it's Ryan Reynolds.

For me, Reynolds is Wade Wilson a.k.a. Deadpool. The character was seemingly designed for him and/or Reynolds was born for the part. Heck, Deadpool himself even referenced in the comic a few years back that if he were in a movie, Reynolds should play him. And that was before he signed with Fox to play Wade Wilson in the Wolverine flick.

The problem with Wolverine was that they totally misused - and arguably ruined - the character. We knew this going in from the promos and merchandise but Reynolds handled the press interview questions about the topic in the best possible way. He always kept positive, but said that if the character got his own solo movie, that it would be very faithful to the comics, unlike in Wolverine. He understood that Wade Wilson's supporting guest role was an opportunity to introduce the character in hopes that he'd get the spinoff to do it right. And that's exactly what happened.

Skip forward a year and a half  and we have Zombieland scribes Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick handling the script, director Robert Rodriguez trying to find time in his schedule to take the director's chair, and Reynolds answering interview questions about Deadpool and why the character and film will be unlike any other in the genre before it. There will be no issues for moviegoers and fans differentiating him from his role of Hal Jordan in Green Lantern.

In an interview with LA Times' Hero Complex Blog, Reynolds talked about Deadpool after having read a draft of the script.

“It goes in such a different direction than a superhero movie usually goes... It’s a nasty piece of work. It’s just based in so much emotional filth, completely. It’s like ‘Barfly‘ if it were a superhero movie. It sort of treads into the world of an emotionally damaged person.  I always say that Deadpool is a guy in a highly militarized shame spiral…. It’s so different than the superhero movies to date, it departs so far from that.”

Continue to Page 2 for Ryan Reynolds talking about taking a gamble with the Deadpool movie and working from the comics!

Green Lantern Could Mean Deadpool Without Ryan Reynolds

After having read the script and knowing the story, Reynolds is reiterating what's been said previously about the film and his explanations still match expectations. An obstacle in selling the movie however, will be how unique it is. The character of Deadpool will be breaking the fourth wall and directly speaking with the audience, just as he does in the comics. Combine that with his general insanity and the tight line he walks between being a hero and villain (or neither), and Deadpool will surprise a lot of moviegoers unfamiliar with the character. It's certainly a risk, but if Reynolds can pull it off, then the movie will be something special.

“With Deadpool, it’s a lot like going to prison for the first day... You got to walk up and hit the biggest guy you see to establish a bit of cred. With Deadpool, early on you have to establish that moral flexibility. There’s a gamble to it — you’re going to lose a few people right at the beginning but you take the gamble and know that eventually you’re going to win them back. You won’t lose the hard-core fans of the character, they already know who he is. We have to play to a broader audience than that. As an actor you have to be willing to do something like … back in Vancouver we used to call it a [nasty] burger. ’You gotta eat the [nasty] burger to get to the cookies.’ And yes, I want to write a cookbook about that…”

I wouldn't be surprised if Wade Wilson/Deadpool does something in the first act of the story which makes him an unlikable (villainous?) character, who then grows on you through his humor and redeems himself later.

As for staying true to the character and comics, something Reynolds has been a vocal advocate of since the project's inception, it likely won't be a direct adaptation of any particular stories. As the Canadian actor points out, there's been many different takes on the character.

“The comics are very inconsistent in the writing... All the different writers, different voices, but at the core of the character his heart is really interesting.  He’s the funniest guy you’ll ever meet, too, and for me that’s exciting but it’s not as hard as capturing that moral flexibility, which  is so important. He hasn’t really experienced the full spectrum of human emotion the way most people do.”

I've been sold on the Deadpool movie since the get-go. Even though in Wolverine, for reasons behind my comprehension, the character of Wade Wilson was turned into some ridiculous made-up villain, the few scenes we got of Reynolds as Wade before that were some of the strong parts of the movie. We know the Deadpool solo outing will ignore those events, so whether or not the entire film is outside of Fox's Marvel movie continuity is yet to be seen.

If you're a Deadpool fan or are simply excited at the prospect of a movie based on the infamous Merc with a Mouth, check out Ryan Reynolds' thoughts on the Deadpool costume and how his ideal trailer needs to be designed.

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Source: LA Times