Deadpool

Deadpool is a 2016 American superhero film directed by Tim Miller, produced by Lauren Shuler Donner and Simon Kinberg, and written by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name. It is the eighth installment in the X-Men film series, and stars Ryan Reynolds (who also co-produced), Morena Baccarin, Ed Skrein, Gina Carano, T.J. Miller, Leslie Uggams and Brianna Hildebrand. In Deadpool, Wade Wilson hunts the man who gave him an accelerated healing factor but also a scarred physical appearance.

Development began in February 2004 with New Line Cinema, but put the film in turnaround in March 2005, with 20th Century Fox buying the rights. In May 2009, after Reynolds portrayed the character in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Fox lent the film to writers, and Miller was hired for his debut in April 2011. Enthusiastic acclaim from leaked CGI test footage by Miller in July 2014 led to Fox greenlighting the film in September. Additional casting began in early 2015, and principal photography commenced in Vancouver from March to May. The film's visual effects  from blood and gore to the CGI Colossus were provided by multiple vendors, including Adobe. The film is rated 'R", a first for the X-Men film series.

Deadpool premiered in Paris on February 8, 2016, and was released on February 12, in the United States in IMAX, DLP, D-Box and premium large format. The film was a massive blockbuster success, grossing over $782 million worldwide and breaking numerous box office records, including becoming the fifth-highest-grossing film of 2016, the highest-grossing R-rated film and X-Men film of all time, and received positive reviews, praising its humor, action sequences and Reynolds' portrayal of the titular character, but criticizing the plot as formulaic.

Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds) is a former Special Forces operative who now works as a mercenary. His world comes crashing down when evil scientist Ajax (Ed Skrein) tortures, disfigures and transforms him into Deadpool. The rogue experiment leaves Deadpool with accelerated healing powers and a twisted sense of humor. With help from mutant allies Colossus and Negasonic Teenage Warhead (Brianna Hildebrand), Deadpool uses his new skills to hunt down the man who nearly destroyed his life.

Release date: February 12, 2016 (Bangladesh)

Director: Tim Miller

Box office: 760.3 million USD

Budget: 58 million USD

Producers: Ryan Reynolds, Lauren Shuler Donner, Simon Kinberg

Wade Wilson, a former special forces operative now a mercenary in New York City, meets an escort named Vanessa at a local bar, forming a one-night stand into a relationship. After a year Wilson proposes to Vanessa; after she accepts, Wilson is diagnosed with terminal cancer. Despite Vanessa's loyalty, he detests her seeing his death and leaves.

"Agent Smith", a recruiter from a covert organization, approaches Wilson with promising abilities that will cure Wilson's cancer, he reluctantly accepts. He is taken to a remote laboratory where he meets Ajax and Angel Dust. Ajax injects a mutation-activating serum into Wilson and subjects him to daily torture to activate it unsuccessfully, Wade teases Ajax about his real name, Francis. Annoyed, Ajax asphyxiates him in an oxygen chamber, developing an accelerated healing factor that cures him, but causes disfigurement over his body. Wilson escapes and battles Ajax, but relents when Ajax promises a cure as he impales him with a rebar, and leaves him for dead.

Wilson survives and attempts to return to Vanessa, but leaves, afraid of her reaction. After consulting his best friend Weasel, Wilson begins tracking down Ajax to get the cure. He becomes a masked vigilante, adopts "Deadpool", and resides with an elderly blind woman, Al. Following a string of leads, Wilson tracks Ajax to a convoy on an expressway. He executes the convoy and corners Ajax, demanding the cure, but is interrupted by Colossus and Negasonic Teenage Warhead, who attempt to recruit Wilson into the X-Men; Ajax escapes. Angered, Wilson abandons them, cutting off his own hand in the process, regenerating overnight.

Ajax and Angel Dust go to Weasel's bar and learn about Vanessa. Weasel warns Wilson that she is in danger, and both go to Vanessa's strip club job. Ajax and Angel Dust lure Vanessa into kidnapping, telling Wilson to meet at a decommissioned helicarrier in a scrapyard. Wilson persuades Colossus and Negasonic to help, travelling to the scrapyard and battle with Ajax, Angel Dust, and their team of mercenaries. As Colossus and Negasonic battle Angel Dust, Wilson kills the mercenaries and battles Ajax atop the helicarrier. During the battle, Negasonic accidentally destroys the equipment stabilizing the helicarrier, tipping it over and scattering Ajax and Wilson. As Colossus carries Negasonic and Angel to safety, Wilson saves Vanessa and injures Ajax. Wilson demands his cure: Ajax reveals there is none, and Wilson kills him in response. Vanessa, angry with Wilson for abandoning her, reconciles when she learns why he stopped seeing her. They both kiss as the film ends.

Ryan Reynolds as Wade Wilson / Deadpool:

A mercenary who is subjected to an experimental regenerative mutation to cure his cancer, which gives him accelerated healing superpowers, but severely scars his body. Reynolds called this version of Deadpool more "authentic" and closer to the comic version than his X-Men Origins: Wolverine version, saying that this Deadpool "takes nothing seriously."

Morena Baccarin as Vanessa:

An escort and Wilson's girlfriend. Baccarin described her as "scrappy, she's not worried about her hair and her nails or messing around. She gets down and dirty and she's not a victim, she's not a damsel in distress."

Ed Skrein as Francis Freeman / Ajax:

An artificially-mutated member of Weapon X, the program that creates Deadpool. Ajax is a weapons expert, with enhanced reflexes and an inability to feel pain. According to Tim Miller, Skrein did "80%" of his own stunts, with stunt doubles only used for rigged stunts.

T. J. Miller as Weasel:

Wilson's best friend who owns a bar. Describing the character, actor T. J. Miller said that Weasel "looks like his superhero power is spilling mustard on his shirt. Or who was bitten by a radioactive spider as a child". He initially attempted to give the character a facial tic, but director Tim Miller rejected the idea. On casting Miller, producer Simon Kinberg explained that the film has "a main character who is so outrageous and irreverent, we needed someone who could keep up with Ryan. We knew that T.J. would bring that."

Gina Carano as Angel Dust:

An artificially-mutated member of Weapon X who possesses superhuman levels of strength, stamina and speed. Carano was given "some room to play with" the characterization of Angel Dust, and said that the "character trusts Ajax with everything. She pretty much only really responds to him. He kinda created me and showed me everything. And I do the same thing to everyone else."

Leslie Uggams as Blind Al:

An elderly blind woman and Deadpool's roommate. Uggams said that Al has "been through British Intelligence, she's done all kinds of wild and crazy things. She had sight at one time, but she lost her sight. But she's adjusted very well...she's old, but she's feisty." On Al's relationship with Deadpool, Uggams said that Al "loves being a part of" Wade's double life and "loves the danger part of him".

Brianna Hildebrand as Negasonic Teenage Warhead:

A teenage X-Men trainee who possesses the mutant power to detonate atomic bursts from her body. The writers chose to use the character based on her name, and changed her abilities from telepathic and precognitive powers to "a literal warhead because we thought it was funnier." To do this, they required permission from Marvel, with Miller talking directly with Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige to do so.

Stefan Kapičić as the voice of Colossus:

An X-Men with the mutant ability to transform his entire body into organic steel. The role was originally offered to Daniel Cudmore, who played the character in X2, X-Men: The Last Stand, and X-Men: Days of Future Past, but he declined. Instead, Colossus became a performance by several actors: Kapičić provided the voice,Andre Tricoteux provided the on-set performance, T. J. Storm provided the final body motion performance, motion capture supervisor Greg LaSalle provided the final facial performance, and Glenn Ennis was used as "the inspiration for the chiseled jaw look behind the character".

Production

Artisan Entertainment announced a deal with Marvel Entertainment to coproduce, finance, and distribute a film based on Deadpool in May 2000, while New Line Cinema attempted to produce a Deadpool film in February 2004, with David S. Goyer working on the script and Ryan Reynolds in the title role;] Reynolds became interested in the character after discovering that Deadpool refers to his own appearance as "Ryan Reynolds crossed with a Shar-Pei" in Cable & Deadpool. By August, Goyer lost interest in favor of other projects. In March 2005, after New Line put Deadpool in turnaround, 20th Century Fox became interested in the project.

Fox began moving on a Deadpool spin-off early in the development of X-Men Origins: Wolverine, which had Reynolds as Deadpool in its cast, and after the opening weekend success of that film announced that it was lending Deadpool out to writers, with Lauren Shuler Donner producing the project. Donner wanted the film to reboot the character of Deadpool, ignoring the version in X-Men Origins: Wolverine and including attributes that the character has in the comics, such as breaking the fourth wall. Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick were hired to write the script in January 2010, and in a month an early draft leaked online, garnering a positive response from fans that prompted Fox to grant a small budget for test footage. Robert Rodriguez was sent another early draft of the screenplay in June 2010, but negotiations fell through, and Tim Miller was eventually hired as director, in April 2011. Adam Berg was also in the running to direct at one point.

In July 2014, the test footage for the film, which had been created with visual effects in 2012 and starred Reynolds through motion capture, was leaked online. Blur Studio, the company that created the test footage, subsequently released it officially. The footage received an overwhelmingly enthusiastic response online, and in September 2014, Fox gave Deadpool a release date of February 12, 2016. Kinberg confirmed a month later that Deadpool would be part of the X-Men shared cinematic universe. Over the years of development, Reese and Wernick wrote additional versions of the script, including a PG-13 version. During the writing process, both James Cameron and David Fincher read early versions of the script, and each of them went to Fox and told them they needed to greenlight the movie, helping to get it out of development hell. Reese felt that ultimately, "about seventy percent" of the initial draft ended up in the final film. Changes during rewrites include the removal of the Marvel characters Garrison Kane and Cannonball from the film, due to budgetary concerns over the required CGI for his cybernetic arms, and the perception of a "stupid hick character", respectively. Wyre, initially an additional villain, was also cut, with the three replaced by Angel Dust.Plans to have the Marvel superhero Cable appear were halted when it was decided that he would work better in a potential sequel.

Reynolds "100 percent" attributed Fox's greenlighting of the film for production to the test footage leak, stating, after being asked who had leaked it, "I would have, if I had known it would have caused that!Now, we get to make the movie. We don't get to make it with the budget of most superhero movies, but we get to make it the way we want to make it." Reese admitted that about $7 million was deducted from the budget ostensibly last-minute, forcing further rewrites. Miller, who made his directorial debut with Deadpool, has been credited by both Reynolds and motion capture supervisor Greg LaSalle with making efficient use of the budget, for example waiting to work on the CGI for Colossus until after the film was edited, cutting down on the cost of post-production.

In December 2014, Reynolds was confirmed to reprise his role as Wade Wilson / Deadpool. The next month, T. J. Miller and Ed Skrein were in talks to appear in the film; in February 2015, Gina Carano was cast as Angel Dust, Miller was confirmed for an unspecified role, and so was Morena Baccarin. Taylor Schilling, Crystal Reed, Rebecca Rittenhouse, Sarah Greene, and Jessica De Gouw were also considered for Baccarin's role. In March, Miller's role was revealed to be Weasel, while Baccarin's was revealed to be Vanessa Carlysle. Brianna Hildebrand was cast as Negasonic Teenage Warhead, and a month later Skrein revealed that he would play Ajax.Leslie Uggams revealed she would portray Blind Al in July, and Tim Miller revealed that Jed Rees would portray the Recruiter in August. Stefan Kapičić voiced Colossus, replacing Daniel Cudmore, who played the character in previous X-Men films. Cudmore was asked to return for Deadpool, but declined as his voice was always intended to be replaced.

Talking about the make-up used to depict the scarring on Wilson's body, Tim Miller said, "There was some discussion about how horrible we could make it, and I firmly planted my flag in 'fucking horrible', because if it isn't, nobody's going to excuse him for being such a dick and being so angry. If it's just a few scars we're not going to have any sympathy for him. To Fox's credit they were like, 'Go for it.' But that said, we didn't want to make him a zombie, which some of the comics go pretty far with. I'm all for authenticity but you can't have a main character who's leaking pus. You don't want to see inside his mouth when he's chewing, that's a bridge too far. I think he looks suitably hideous. And that's not the only stage of the make-up: when we first see him in the workshop it's pretty raw." Elaborating on the initial make-up scene in the workshop, Miller stated that it took 6 hours to apply Reynolds' full-body make-up.Also, visual effects supervisor Jonathan Rothbart discussed the practical costume created for Deadpool, noting that it was difficult to replicate later in CGI for the visual effects: "The costume is made of this mesh so all the dirt would get into the gutters and the cracks and crevices of the costume. Then all the ridges of the mesh would stay nice and clean, so anytime sun would be on it and the light hits it, it still takes that orangey hue but as soon as it goes in the shadow it dropped to this more blueish of the dirt."

Principal photography commenced on March 23, 2015, in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and ended on May 29, 2015. Ken Seng served as director of photography on the film, while Robert Alonzo and Philip Silvera supervised and coordinated the film's stunts, respectively. The production hired over 2,000 local people as actors, extras, and crew members. Reynolds stated that inspiration for the fight between Deadpool and Ajax in the latter's laboratory came from the sauna showdown in David Cronenberg's Eastern Promises.

Music

Junkie XL, under his legal name Tom Holkenborg, composed the score for Deadpool, using synthesizers made popular in the 80s that "were perceived as very serious [at the time, but] now, in hindsight, when you play them back, they're very funny." For Deadpool's primary 'riffs', Holkenborg utilizes the ARP 2600 synth and a Synclavier, while an Oberheim was used for emotionally-focused scenes. A complete orchestra was used for the X-Men to give them a "noble" feeling and to honor the previous X-Men films. The film's soundtrack also incorporates several songs, including "Deadpool Rap" by YouTube personalities TeamHeadKick, inspired by the 2013 video game, but was revised to fit the movie's events instead. The soundtrack album was released digitally on February 12, 2016, and physically through Milan Records, on March 4, featuring both Holkenborg's score and songs from other artists that are used in the film.

Box office

Deadpool grossed $363.1 million in North America and $419.3 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $782.4 million, against a budget of $58 million.Worldwide, it is the fifth highest-grossing film of 2016, the highest-grossing R-rated film of all time (surpassing The Matrix Reloaded's $742 million), the highest-grossing X-Men film (surpassing X-Men: Days of Future Past's $747.9 million),and the highest-grossing 20th Century Fox film not directed by either James Cameron or George Lucas. It had a worldwide opening of $264.9 million from 62 markets, which was the biggest of 2016 (now the third biggest), the biggest for an R-rated film, and the second biggest for Fox, only behind Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith ($303.9 million). It recorded the biggest IMAX 2D worldwide opening of all time with $27.4 million from 606 IMAX theaters, eclipsing The Dark Knight Rises ($23.8 million). The film became a massive box office blockbuster hit and a very profitable production for the studio, a surprise to some considering that the film was rated R, was not released in China, and was only shown in 2D and IMAX format in contrast to most superhero films also shown in 3D