Ryan Reynolds Recalls Sacrificing Deadpool Salary to Pay Writers
and are finally entering the MCU in Deadpool & Wolverine. As popular as the character is today, it took years to bring Wade Wilson to the screen. Reynolds had been developing a Deadpool movie as early as 2004. After nearly a decade in development, Deadpool finally started shooting in 2015.
However, the challenges of bringing Deadpool to the big screen continued during filming. The production could not afford to keep Deadpool co-writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick on set, so Reynolds stepped in with a solution.
In a recent interview with The New York Times, Reynolds explained how he sacrificed his Deadpool salary to ensure his co-writers stayed on set.
“When I finally got to make it, it had been almost 10 years at that point. No part of me was thinking when Deadpool was finally greenlit that this would be a success,” Reynolds said. “I even let go of getting paid to do the movie just to put it back on the screen: They wouldn’t allow my co-writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick on set, so I took the little salary I had left and paid them to be on set with me so we could form a de facto writers room.”
The gamble paid off, as Deadpool became the highest-grossing R-rated film of all time, with over $782 million worldwide, a record that stood until Deadpool 2. This decision to prioritize the movie over money was a lesson that stuck with Reynolds.
“I think one of the great enemies of creativity is too much time and money, and that movie had neither time nor money,” Reynolds explained. “It really fostered focusing on character over spectacle, which is a little harder to execute in a comic-book movie. I was just so invested in every micro-detail of it, and I hadn’t felt like that in a long, long time. I remembered wanting to feel that more — not just on Deadpool, but on anything.”
Reynolds will suit up again as Wade Wilson for Deadpool & Wolverine, which arrives in theaters on July 26, 2024.
(Source: The New York Times)
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