How Deadpool’s Honest Trailer Got Ryan Reynolds To Join The Party

Looks like Ryan Reynolds doesn't hold a grudge against the fanboys over at Screen Junkies for their brutally hilarious Green Lantern Honest Trailer. That, or Deadpool’s ADD got the best of him. Either way, the satirical parody series successfully recruited Reynolds’ Deadpool to star in his own Honest Trailer. Given Deadpool’s knack for being a wry, self-deprecating smartass, it’s not surprising he’s bold enough to give narrator Jon Bailey a hard time.

We caught up with the one of the brains behind Honest Trailers, creator Andy Signore, who gave us an early taste of Reynold’s Deadpool cameo.

“It's a lot of Deadpool. We literally have Deadpool doing the Deadpool stuff in our trailer for a good 3 out of 5 minutes. [Ryan Reynolds] is full on Deadpool. He comes in and interrupts Jon. There’s an ongoing joke in the trailer that he’s cursing a lot but we bleep his cursing. At a certain point he’s like, ‘What the fuck are all these bleeps?’a gag they didn't get to do in the movie that I was excited we get to do in our episode.”

When the Screen Junkies team first saw Deadpool, they had no idea how to make an Honest Trailer for a film that is already so honest and self-aware.

“I had to figure out a way to get Ryan Reynolds involved. If there’s ever a movie to get an actor involved, it's this one since all the marketing was so brilliant,” Signore said. “So I tweeted out to Ryan directly on a lark saying something like, ‘Man, Deadpool’s going to be tough but it’d be so much better if you did it.’”

Fans immediately jumped on the tweet and started hitting up Reynolds and the entire Deadpool creative team. It wasn’t until after Signore reached out to Reynolds that he read an article where Tim Miller revealed he actually thought about making the post-credits scene into an Honest Trailer, but ultimately decided it didn't make sense for the movie. That’s when everything started to fall into place.

“The next day after I read that article, I logged into twitter and I see I'm being followed by Ryan Reynolds. I see a message from him directly,” Signore said

As a fan of Honest Trailers and Screen Junkies shows, Reynolds got on board.

“Working with Ryan has been very surreal. He’s been super collaborative and on point. All thanks to the beauty of Twitter and our fanbase, Signore said.” It was crazy to see that one. He was a fan, and two. So open and willing to make sure its funny and honest; exactly what we want it to be.”

Signore expressed interest in getting a celebrity involved in their own honest trailer way back in 2014, but he thinks it really came down to timing. Last week, The Russo brothers recently joined Screen Junkies and revealed they actually try to Honest Trailer-proof their movies, particularly Captain America : The Winter Soldie r, which ended up being one of the most popular Honest Trailer episodes with more than 9 million views.

“It blew me away the fact that now we’re learning we are influencing our influencers which is very satisfying,” Signore said.

Similar to The Winter Soldier, Signore admits Deadpool has only a few minor issues. But it isn’t like The Winter Soldier 's Honest Trailer were Bailey comes out and admits the movie is damn near perfect.

“We don't do that gag. We’ve done that a few times. We are never trying to crap on a movie, we’re huge movie lovers and this movie did an amazing job with creating something new with the genre that I feel like a lot of people think is getting very tired. They managed to do something fun and different with it and took some very risky moves to much success,” he said.

The Honest Trailer stays true to Deadpool’s character. Bailey and Deadpool start off sharing the trailer narration duties together, and when Bailey gets too critical (obviously upsetting the irritable mercenary), Reynolds rips Jon a new one. “Why am I even here?” he says.

“We're pretty positive, then Jon ends up going, ‘If you take all this away, it's pretty much a by the numbers love story with a by the numbers revenge plot that we’ve seen a million times.’ That's when Deadpool goes, ‘By the numbers? What the hell are you talking about?”’

Jon and Deadpool bicker back and forth before Deadpool goes on a huge rant. “I’m the highest grossing R-rated movie of all time and people should be sucking my [bleep],” Signore told us in full-on Deadpool voice.

“It goes off from there in a way only Deadpool can, which we fully wanted to embrace. That's what was so fun about getting Ryan involved. Writing some Deadpool lines was obviously nerve-wracking and to know that he was into them and down to do it made it so much cooler,” Signore said.

This is the first time an actor will star in his own Honest Trailer, and Deadpool’s star power should push this episode above a lot of the others. Screen Junkies most viewed trailers so far are Frozen (27 million), Fifty Shades of Grey (17 million), and The Lion King (15 million). Signore is hoping to do more Honest Trailers like Deadpool’s down the line.

“We make a joke at the end of this one actually where the parting words are, ‘Don’t you dare ask me to do this again for Deadpool 2.’ Then we ask for Wolverine’s phone number. And he says, ‘Yeah. I have him under my phone as Jean Valjean.”’

A Wolverine cameo in an Honest Trailer would surely excite fans, but first up, Signore said there’s been tons of requests for an episode on Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice . He also said Screen Junkies is going to have fun tackling Captain America: Civil War .

“The Russos basically put us a task and said, ‘Good luck trying to do this one.’ I loved the movie, but I think we can find an angle on that,” Signore said.

So before you find out what’s in Deadpool’s “Fun Sack [of balls]” on the Blu-Ray/DVD release, enjoy a few minutes of Deadpool doing more Deadpool stuff while getting Screen Junkies comedic take on the most successful R-rated movie ever.