Over a decade after it happened, actor Ryan Reynolds has finally admitted that he was the one who leaked the “Deadpool” test footage online in 2014.
Filmmaker Tim Miller produced CG test footage in 2012 as a mock-up for what a live-action “Deadpool” movie might look like. That was used to pitch to the studios that rejected it, and the clip was seemingly shelved.
Then, around the time of Comic-Con 2014, the footage leaked online and received an overwhelmingly positive response from excited fans – so much so that it led to 20th Century Fox greenlighting the R-rated superhero movie, which became a massive smash hit in 2016.
Who leaked the footage has long remained an unanswered question, though Reynolds has always been the prime suspect. Appearing at the Toronto International Film Festival this week, Reynolds finally admitted to it during a chat with EW:
“Yes, I cheated a little, but I think I was onto something that people would be interested in. And I’m grateful that I listened to that instinct, and I’m grateful that I did the wrong thing in that moment.
I’d shot test footage for it a couple of years before, and the studio just didn’t want anything to do with it. Deadpool’s a fringe character; people didn’t really know who he was, and I loved him. I was obsessed with it because I loved that he knew he was in a comic book movie. It was kind of meta, it was kind of new. But the test footage existed, and it really was a case study of how this could work. And they just wouldn’t do anything with it.
Some a–hole leaks it online and I’m like, you know, looking at the guy in the mirror brushing my teeth. And I’m like, ‘Dude, what have you done? This could be punishable by law!’ But the internet forced the studio to say, ‘We’re gonna make this movie,’ and 24 hours later, that movie had a green light.”
Reynolds previously evaded directly addressing his involvement, even as recently as last year, when he was hooked up to a polygraph machine in a Vanity Fair lie detector interview.
The first “Deadpool” ultimately made over $780 million at the global box office on a $58 million budget, shattering the record for R-rated movies. Its sequel performed even better.
