Filmmaker Shawn Levy says the upcoming third “Deadpool” movie, the first at Marvel Studios and a part of the MCU, was halfway through filming before production was halted.
The project, which spent years stuck in development, finally got the go-ahead this year and began shooting in May – just as the writer’s strike began, which meant changes couldn’t be made on set.
Earlier this Summer, the first photos showed up online showcasing Jackman’s Wolverine alongside Reynolds’ Deadpool before filming then shut down days later due to the SAG-AFTRA strike.
Levy, who directs the film, is currently at the Toronto International Film Festival and spoke with Deadline where he offered an update on the movie:
“Well, like the rest of our industry, or at least large swaths of it, we are paused – we were halfway through filming. It was a joy every day, and that chemistry is, I have to say – spoiler alert – as relentlessly awesome as we had all hoped it would be. But, we are halfway through filming.”
He confirms production will resume as soon as the striking writers and actors get the fair deals they seek, and that he and Reynolds wanted to make sure that there was no change in tone compared to the prior films:
“Deadpool 1 is, to me, a perfect movie, and so I was not going to mess with the DNA of that franchise. Our movie is raw, audacious, very much R-rated. We went to great lengths to not shoot it on sound stages with digital environments. The internet has proven that by revealing pictures of our shoot. Thank you, internet!
But we wanted something that felt grounded [and] real, but you put Hugh Jackman in his most iconic character alongside Ryan Reynolds in his most iconic character… I would say it’s more a descendant of Midnight Run, and 48 Hours, and Planes, Trains and Automobiles than it is a descendant of Airplane!.”
“Deadpool 3” is currently scheduled to be released in theaters on May 3rd 2024.
