A couple of months ago star Ryan Reynolds thanked fans for making DEADPOOL a reality, but apparently behind-the-scenes the comic book movie also had some help from a couple of big-name filmmakers. While speaking with IGN, co-writer Rhett Reese and director Tim Miller revealed that the film might not have been made without the support of James Cameron and David Fincher, who helped convince Fox that the should move forward with the project.
Reese on Cameron and Fincher backing DEADPOOL:
They read the script each of them at two independent key moments during the script’s development. And each one of them was kind enough to go to 20th Century Fox and essentially throw in their good word just saying ‘Hey, what are you guys doing with Deadpool? You should be making this!’ David was a help before Jim and he was just kind of nudging along the way. And then Jim ultimately weighed in in a key decision node moment and got Fox to free up some money to try a PG-13 draft at the time – that was not Jim’s idea, that was Fox’s idea.
But I think a project that is dormant often just suffers from neglect, and I think having those powerful people weigh in at certain times just lodged with Fox and I think it had a cumulative effect more than anything.
Miller went on to add, “First of all they’re probably mad at me for ever having… because that was never intended to be public knowledge! Listen – the industry listens to tastemakers and you could not find two gentlemen who have better taste in what should become a movie or be made into a movie and so I just thought that maybe they could help push the boulder up the hill a little bit, which they kindly did.”
Even if you aren’t a fan of either director, you have to admit it was pretty cool of them to reach out Fox and say, “I think you should do this,” especially since they weren’t directly involved with DEADPOOL, and had nothing to gain financially. See, sometimes peer pressure is a good thing!