Fans are excited as it is release week for Deadpool & Wolverine!
I had the pleasure of speaking with director/writer Shawn Levy about Deadpool & Wolverine. Levy delved into what it was like writing the story alongside Ryan Reynolds, seeing Reynolds as Deadpool alongside Hugh Jackman as Wolverine on set for the first time, and what he hopes fans of the characters and of the previous X-Men and Deadpool films take away from this film.
Check out the full interview with Shawn Levy below:
Directing a film like Deadpool & Wolverine seems like it could be a daunting task but Levy was up to the challenge. Not only did he take on directing, but he also helped write the movie.
“Yeah, it was an interesting dynamic because we were very rarely all five of us in one place. Zeb Wells was the other writer, and during the early stages, it was a lot of just Zoom round robins as we tried to craft the story. And then once we had the story, once Wolverine joined this movie, and we really had a sense of what the story wanted to be – sometimes it was literally as mathematical as ‘Okay, I’ll take these 20, you take those 20 to 40, 40 to 60.’ And then we would write, and we would round robin, and literally handoff our pages to each other.”
Seeing Reynolds and Jackman in their iconic costumes on set for the first time was something that excited me when I watched the footage last week. It was also something that excited Levy as well.
About seeing his two leads on set in costume for the first time, Levy said, “It’s crazy, right? Yeah, I mean, there’s – there was what you felt when you saw the footage, is what we felt on set. There’s something larger than life. Ryan and Hugh are my two actual dear friends. And we’re buddies. And we spend a lot of time together when we’re not at work. But when they would step on set, and suddenly it’s, ‘Oh my goodness, that’s Deadpool and Wolverine in these iconic suits.’ It’s like they both got six inches taller, and their presence become something bigger than life, something more epic.”
When asked about what he hopes fans will take away from Deadpool & Wolverine, Levy said, “That’s a great question. I actually know exactly what I hope. I hope that they’ll come away saying that movie really honored the legacy of these characters, but also took them into a story and a side of themselves that I haven’t seen before.”
Deadpool & Wolverine hits theatres on July 26.
