Doctor Strange, Captain America: Civil War, Suicide Squad, Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice and X-Men: Apocalypse have all released since Deadpool made his mark back in February. Now, Ryan Reynolds is back in the spotlight as GQ’s man of the year. Reynolds celebrated with a video featuring his ‘twin’ and also spoke on Green Lantern, the DC Comics adaption every comic book fan wishes they could forget. As it turned out, Green Lantern would have never existed if Fox greenlit Deadpool back in 2010.
"I wrote a letter to my executive at Fox saying, 'I’m gonna take this movie Green Lantern if you guys aren’t gonna make Deadpool,” Reynolds told GQ.
He compared the scenario to a major proposal, saying Fox ultimately broke his heart, forcing him to move on. Thankfully, he didn’t.
“I’m at the altar, about to say ‘I do’ to somebody else, but tell me you want to spend the rest of your life with me, because I want to spend the rest of my life with you.' And they said, 'Unfortunately, we can’t green-light that movie, and I don’t think it’s ever going to get green-lit.' So I was like, Okay, I’m gonna go move on with my life, then, I guess."
While Reynolds says Green Lantern was the opportunity of a lifetime, he also revealed the film didn’t have a working script until halfway through shooting. The importance of a good script, Reynold says, is what he learned most from the shamed Green Lantern experience. But that wasn’t the first, or will it be the last, time there will be differences on set. His portrayal of Deadpool in X-Men Origins: Wolverine back in 2009 was not well received and Reynold’s partner Tim Miller has left the Deadpool sequel because of creative differences.
Reynolds said he warned Fox that his character was poorly adapted for X-Men. It wasn’t until footage of Reynolds, Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick script leaked that Fox considered making the movie.
“I still get angry, because I remember saying, 'You know, there are more Deadpool fans out there than you realize, and they’re not gonna be happy with this,” Reynolds said about his performance in X-Men Origins. “I was met with a plausible reason, which was: 'We don’t have enough time to develop a proper Deadpool suit and make him the fully realized version of the comic, so we’re going with this.' But I was like, 'Then don’t do it at all!'"
Reynolds miraculously fixed his character and Deadpool turned out to be one of the best movies of 2016, even with a budget nowhere near the size of Captain America Civil War or Suicide Squad.
“The studio responded to that groundswell by saying, 'Okay, here’s the absolute bare minimum amount of money that we will consider giving this character. Go make your movie, fuck off, and let us know when it’s done,’” Reynolds said.
Tim Miller reportedly split over creative differences about the tone of the movie and who would play Cable. There’s no word on who will replace him as director. Deadpool 2 is still expected in 2018.
