The release of Deadpool in 2016 was a huge success and sparked a trend towards more adult-oriented superhero fare that until then had been typically marketed with a more general audience in mind. It might never have come to pass though had some test footage not been leaked to universal acclaim, and Ryan Reynolds has now tweeted a video questioning who did it.
Made as a parody of Unsolved Mysteries, the video riffs on the show’s opening sequence, using the same music and subjecting shots from the Deadpool movies to similar visual effects of lens flares, gentle fading and images just out of focus. It commemorates the four-year anniversary of the footage arriving online and going viral faster than an obvious analogy it would be really insensitive to make right now.
It’s why the next #Deadpool film is taking so long. Still trying to solve this. Happy #Leakaversary pic.twitter.com/w6Ld5NhKYu
— Ryan Reynolds (@VancityReynolds) July 28, 2020
The culprit behind the footage’s leaking has never been officially identified, but one of the most likely suspects is Reynolds himself, who along with director Tim Miller and writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick was one of the only people with ready access to it. Had the end results proven less all-round positive, it would have likely resulted in the responsible party having their career tanked, since as well-intentioned as it might have been, it was still a flagrant defiance of trust.
As it happens, the internet imploded with excitement and high demand swiftly followed for a full movie with exactly the same mix of action and humor, which a little over 18 months later audiences were provided with and not disappointed by, which included the CGI footage reshot in live action and incorporated as part of a key sequence of the finished film.
Who was actually responsible for the leak is now a moot point after the huge successes that Deadpool and its sequel were. However, people are still overlooking the possibility that the guilty individual in question is actually Deadpool himself, who became aware of the intention to bring him to life in a film and did what he could to ensure it happened.