Among the many superhero movies that studios have cranked out in recent years, Deadpool stands alone for its raunch and its R rating.
The film stars Ryan Reynolds as Wade Wilson, a wisecracking mercenary who, facing a fatal illness, puts his trust in an evil scientist. Transformed into a far stronger -- but much less handsome man, he becomes Deadpool,teams up with a couple of other mutants and goes on a quest for revenge, all while mocking some well-worn superhero tropes.
Fox released Deadpool in February -- not usually a time when studios open popcorn movies. Yet the film broke record after record, becoming the highest grossing movie for Presidents' Day weekend and the number-two rated R movie ever, behind only The Passion of the Christ.
But getting there wasn't so easy.
Today we talk to director Tim Miller, and Simon Kinberg, who has written and produced several X-Men movies as well as action films Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Jumper and Sherlock Holmes.
Before he made his directing debut with Deadpool, Miller established himself as a visual effects artist. In 1995, he co-founded the animation and design company Blur Studio. It was his work on a superhero video game project that first got him noticed by a Fox executive.
Along with Miller, Ryan Reynolds is in many ways the champion of the film; he was committed to a stand-alone Deadpool movie since portraying the character in another X-Men film in 2009. But Reynolds' career cooled off after he starred in the disastrous Green Lantern movie. Deadpool looked kind of dead at Fox. But director Tim Miller did get the chance to shoot some test footage -- a long action sequence with snappy banter from Deadpool and lots of CG effects. Then, someone leaked the footage online -- there were those who suspected Miller -- and fans began to clamor for the movie. The rest is history.