Deadpool Movie News: Everything We Know

Hey, did you hear? Deadpool is getting his own movie! A Deadool movie! Isn’t that nuts?

It’s coming out on Feb. 12, 2016 and everything! There’s a lot of news and stuff that’s been coming out and it can be hard to keep track of it all. Luckily, you can check back at this page to get a pretty strong idea on what’s what.

The Latest News

There's a brand new image of Deadpool hanging out with Negasonic Teenage Warhead, courtesy of Ryan Reynolds' Twitter feed.

Deadpool Movie Trailer

Can I see some trailers and stuff?

Sure, here’s a Deadpool trailer.

What? Oh. Right.

Here's the RedBand as fuck version...

And the sanitized one...

Also, remember the test footage that made everyone go gaga?

Deadpool Pictures

Who is Deadpool?

Hello, and welcome to the internet. I’m sure this is a new and scary experience for you.

Introduced in New Mutants #98 by Fabian Nicieza and Rob Liefeld in 1991, Wade Wilson – a thinly-veiled knockoff of Slade Wilson, AKA Deathstroke the Terminator from DC Comics – hit the scene. An amoral mercenary and nemesis of Cable and his X-Force team, Deadpool slowly grew in popularity over the years, culminating in his own comic series. He’s a black ops soldier who suffered from some serious and very terminal cancer, but Department H and Weapon X (the same guys who bedazzled Wolverine's bones) offered to take care of that. They recreated Wolverine’s healing factor on him, which screwed him up both physically and mentally, but stopped him from dying.

Since then, Deadpool has become one of the world’s highest-paid guns for hire, although he’s secretly a pretty great guy with a sense of decency buried underneath his love for violence and breaking the fourth wall.

He’s also really gross-looking under the mask, enjoys talking about Mexican food, and has an unhealthy obsession with Dorothy from Golden Girls.

So is there any cool story about how this movie came to be?

Is there ever! My benevolent editor Mike Cecchini went into more detail here, but here’s the skinny: Once upon a time, Ryan Reynolds was in a movie called Blade: Trinity. It’s that movie where Wesley Snipes was so drugged up and hard to work with that they had to literally CGI him opening his eyes at one point. Anyway, Ryan Reynolds played Hannibal King and his humor and style made a lot of people feel that he’d be a perfect cinematic Deadpool. Confused over what a Deadpool was, Reynolds did some research, realized that he loved the character, and championed the fan-casting.

He’d get his chance to play the character in 2009’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine, where we got to see him play a snarky Wade Wilson for a fun few minutes, then return during the climax as Weapon XI. 20th Century Fox, in their infinite wisdom, decided that Deadpool should be reimagined into a mouthless Baraka with laser eyes and teleportation. Suffice to say, they dropped the ball, and any possibility of Deadpool getting his own spinoff movie were deep-sixed.

But Deadpool is resilient against dying and real life can often imitate art. Ryan Reynolds wasn’t happy with movie Deadpool being anything but Deadpool and wanted another crack at it. Fox wasn’t having it. A year or so later, a screenplay written by Zombielandscribes Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick was leaked to the internet, dated April of 2010. This got some viral appreciation from the internet masses, but not enough for Fox to go through with it.

Luckily, the potential project got enough of a foot in the door that they got to make a full CGI proof of concept clip. It gave an idea of how things would look, sound, and what the tone would be. Fox didn’t seem too enthused about it, so that too got leaked onto the internet. Even though Fox initially tried to take the clip down, they realized that the internet is the internet and containing something like that is like trying to hold steam in your hands. Many of the viewers had the same reaction:

“Holy shit! Why isn’t this movie being made?!”

Having received a viral explosion of interest, Fox relented and decided to give it a green light. Actually, scratch that. I shouldn't mention green lights when discussing Ryan Reynolds movies. Too many bad memories.

So wait, is this a sequel to that Wolverine movie?

Who is directing this?

That would be Tim Miller.

Oh. Is he any good?

Maybe? He’s only directed a couple short films over a decade ago. He did help out with the second Thor movie. That’s something.

Deadpool Movie Rating

This is going to be PG-13, right?

You’d think so, wouldn’t you. Just like you’d think my shtick is wearing thin. The leaked screenplay was very over the line with foul language, violence, and sexy stuff. Granted, this means relying on curse words as jokes, which is lazy. Being that this is a comic book superhero from the X-Men corner of Marvel who's lucky to even be getting a movie to begin with, cutting it down into PG-13 seemed like the best bet, even if the people behind the movie really wanted to push it into an R rating.

This clip appeared in early April to announce the PG-13 rating.

And by early April, I mean April 1st. This movie’s going to be R-rated, so enjoy jokes about blowjobs and scenes of Deadpool horribly mutilating himself and others to fulfill his missions.

Deadpool Movie Characters

Cut the crap! Who's in this movie?

We’re about to head into mild spoiler territory. You’ve been warned.

As we’ve gone over, Ryan Reynolds is returning as Wade Wilson/Deadpool. His love interest is Morena Baccarin as Vanessa Carlysle, known in the comics as Copycat. The original script doesn’t have her get powers or anything, but that could have been added in a rewrite. TJ Miller is Weasel, Deadpool’s long-suffering weapons supplier. Leslie Uggams is going to be Wade’s blind and elderly roommate Blind Al, who is considerably less abused than she is in the comic.

Being that this takes place in the X-Men cinematic universe, we have Andre Tricoteux playing Piotr Resputin/Colossus (replacing Daniel Cudmore). He’s joined by Brianna Hildebrand as Ellie Phimister, codenamed Negasonic Teenage Warhead. Ellie is missing from the original screenplay and appears to be something of a teen sidekick for Deadpool. Incredibly obscure, Ellie appeared during Grant Morrison’s groundbreaking New X-Men run where she was killed almost immediately. Go figure. Speaking of characters missing from the original screenplay, Gina Carano plays Angel Dust, an equally obscure mutant character from a forgotten Morlocksminiseries.

You can’t have a superhero without a villain and we have Ed Skrein as Ajax. Ajax is a super-powered orderly and sadist at Weapon X who delights in torturing Wilson. In return, Wilson delights in referring to him as his real name “Francis” and getting under his skin. Using him as an antagonist here is for the best, since Ajax is easily Deadpool’s best rogue.

While their casting hasn’t been announced, other Deadpool/X-Men characters include Patch, Worm, Garrison Kane, Sluggo, and Wyre. The first two are allies of Deadpool while the other three are soldiers working for Ajax.

Here’s a more detailed look at the characters in the movie.

Deadpool Movie Pictures

Got any cool photos?

Sure, why not.

This is the first official image of Deadpool released, a loving homage to a certain Burt Reynolds photo.

Here's Deadpool either diving or doing one hell of a dropkick.

Somebody's not doing all that hot in the background there.

Ed Skrein as Ajax. Not the most intimidating first look at our main villain.

Weasel getting choked by Angel Dust. I suppose that means she's evil.

Negasonic Teenage Warhead tries to remember who the hell she is again.

Okay, Deadpool seems pretty neat but the movie's too far away. Any ideas on what Deadpool comics to read in the meantime?

I’m glad you asked. And by “you” I mean “me in the middle of the night while pumped up on 5 Hour Energy.” I have this handy guide to what Deadpool stories to read with enough on what stories to stay away from.

Deadpool Movie Release Date

One more time, when does this hit theaters?

February 12, 2016. Go see it. It’s good for you.

Gavin Jasper is sad to know that Taskmaster is part of the Avengers cinematic universe and can never meet his frenemy Deadpool on the silver screen. Perhaps in another lifetime. Perhaps... Follow Gavin on Twitter.