A very spoiler-y conversation with the director behind the year’s most talked-about superhero movie.
Warning: This article contains spoilers fromDeadpool & Wolverine.
And here we are.
Ryan Reynolds' Wade Wilson in ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’.20th Century Studios/Marvel Studios
It’s time for theDeadpool & Wolverinespoiler orgy.
It’s already the highest-grossing R-rated movie ever.
SHAWN LEVY:I am basking.
Dafne Keen, Hugh Jackman, Jennifer Garner, Shawn Levy, Emma Corrin, Ryan Reynolds, Wesley Snipes, Channing Tatum, Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige, and Chris Evans at the ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ Comic-Con 2024 celebration.Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty
So this has been certainly the thrill of my career by a lot.
It’s really affirming.
And, look, every time someone has asked me, “What about superhero fatigue?”
Chris Evans at Comic-Con’s ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ panel in Hall H.Michael Buckner/Variety via Getty
I’ve held to this conviction that people just want to be surprised.
They want something unexpected and new, and I feel like we certainly devoted ourselves to delivering that.
I work for audience satisfaction.
Blake Lively’s Ladypool brings the Deadpool Corps. into the fray of ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’.Marvel
Let’s start by talking about a lot of the guest appearances.
There was a brief moment where maybe we were debating which Juggernaut.
There was a Vinnie Jones conversation that didn’t really go very far.
Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool and Hugh Jackman as Wolverine in ‘Deadpool and Wolverine.'.Jay Maidment/20th Century Studios/MARVEL
[Jones featured as Juggernaut in 2008’sX-Men: The Last Stand.]
But other than that, everybody we asked said yes and somehow made the time.
They all came back months later with that same enthusiasm.
That right there says everything people need to know about the spirit that went into making this movie.
Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty
You worked with Jen onThe Adam Project.
You worked with Chris onFree Guy.
The outreach to Jen was so comfortable and so easy.
It’s ironic that Ryan first asked me to direct this movie on the set ofThe Adam Project.
AndChris showed up for us inFree Guy.
He and Ryan had done cameos back and forth [for each other’s projects], I believe.
That was how 90 percent of that surprise casting got done.
That simple, that quick.
Henry Cavill fans were dream-casting him as Wolverine over the years.
How close you were paying attention to what the fans have been talking about in the zeitgeist for years?
Ryan may have been a little more fluent in that.
How cool would that be?"
Gone is the righteous nobility and cleanliness of Captain America.
This is a Boston-inflected, Chris Evans-inspired Johnny Storm.
I feel like it’s more Chris than the original Chris Evans.
Chris is a Boston boy.
It was so very loud.
It was never a conversation.
It was never even a seed of a discussion.
I also sawThe Adam Projectstar Walker Scobell at the New York premiere, and I knowhe loves Deadpool.
He was another one that a lot of fans were hoping to see in this movie.
Did you ever have conversations with him about it?
If Walker Scobell had stopped evolving right before puberty, he absolutely would’ve been Kidpool.
It was his dream.
Puberty is what it is, and all the Hollywood dreams in the world can’t stop it.
So we did call Walker and explain why he couldn’t be Kidpool, and he was completely understanding.
This leads me into my favorite scene in the entire movie: the Deadpool Corps.’
arrival that looked like a really chaotic sequence to channel into one tracking shot.
How did you plan that four-minute one-shot?
Did you storyboard it?
That is the single most complicated shot in the movie.
It aspired to be an ecstatic symphony of violence.
It started with storyboards.
Those evolved into pre-visualization, where you animate the storyboards.
Those are real fighters the whole way through.
The body doesn’t move the same way.
It took hundreds of teammates to figure it out and pull it off.
It’s one of our great prides.
Were there moments like that that occurred for this big tracking shot for the Deadpool Corps.?
A lot of it was scripted.
I do want to give credit to the entire section in the bus through that shot.
That was our storyboard artist, Jeremy Simser.
That bus section and the idea of the windows getting increasingly obscured with blood splatter, that was Jeremy.
I am a great beneficiary of tremendous creativity from the whole team.
You always want to zig when the expectation is for the genre to zag.
Are there other more general moments where you found things in the moment?
By the way, you’re joining at a bit of a low point."
That was Ryan’s inspiration.
Similarly, his speech to the Deadpool Corps.
about miss after miss after miss: “Let’s just take the L and move on.”
Those are two of probably a thousand inspired adds.
The scripted line was, “I’m wearing the suit, that means I’m an X-Man.”
While we were filming the take, I remembered what Deadpool had said in the diner.
So I called out during the take to Hugh from behind the camera.
I’m thinking of the joke about Hugh’s divorce, the Ben Affleck/Daredevil and Jennifer Garner stuff.
Was there ever a joke where you thought maybe we shouldn’t do this one?
There was only one line in the entire movie that we were asked to change.
That’s Ryan Reynolds for you, audacious to the very edge.
Kevin never insisted that we service some story beyond.
I’ve been asked, for instance, why is Thor crying.
The answer being: I don’t f—ing know.
No one does, but I’d sure love to be the guy who helps find out why.
But, yes, we see X-23 at the end.
Logan has opted to stay in Deadpool’s world.
But as for what’s beyond, I genuinely don’t know.
I genuinely hope and intend to be a part of telling those stories.
We never once were asked to service a broader storyline or phase.
To this day, I couldn’t tell you what phase our movie is in.
Is it like 14?
I sincerely couldn’t tell you.
Have there been any new developments since the red carpet?
Nothing in an official way.
Just so much shared respect and affection between really all of us.
It was certainly before the outcome was mind-blowingly great.
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