When Deadpool director Tim Miller suddenly walked away from the Deadpool sequel, we were all intensely shocked and concerned that the project might meet with delays. But by the next week, 20th Century Fox had already made a list of potential directors, and within a month they had hired John Wick co-director David Leitch as Miller's replacement.
What convinced them in such a short period of time to give Leitch the job as the director of Deadpool 2? If that question has been running through your mind, you’ll be glad to know that lead actor/producer Ryan Reynolds offered an answer in a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly. Claiming that everyone on the team was "just a fan" of Leitch's work, the Canadian actor added:
He's just a guy who's so muscular with his action. He also really understands those Deadpool sensibilities and where we need to take the franchise from here. And I love John Wick. One of the things that David Leitch does that very few filmmakers can do these days is they can make a movie on an ultra tight minimal budget look like it was shot for 10-15 times what it cost.
Reynolds' statement pretty much falls in line with the initial reports about Tim Miller's departure. According to those reports, Miller envisioned Deadpool 2 as "more of a stylized sequel", while Reynolds believed that the focus should be more on "the raunchy comedy style" of the original movie.
According to Simon Kinberg, overseer of Fox's X-Men Universe, their goal is to make Deadpool 2 as "provocative and startling" as its predecessor. They don't want it to be "just a continuation" of Deadpool:
That's the biggest mandate going into the second film: to not make it bigger. We have to resist the temptation to make it bigger in scale and scope, which is normally what you do when you have a surprise hit movie. But actually stay true to the tenets of the tone and the style and the humor that make it so special "” it's not the explosions and the special effects.
During the interview with Reynolds, he didn't reveal exactly when filming for Deadpool 2 will begin, but he did insist that it will happen soon. He went on to say, "We're just in the development stage but we're about to move into production." He also confirmed that they are indeed searching for actors to play Cable and Domino in the upcoming sequel.
Deadpool! (GIF via Giphy)
