Deadpool May Be Moving Forward With Ryan Reynolds Starring

It was only last weekend that Rob Liefeld told the crowd at the Amazing Arizona Comic-Con that he “may or may not” have seen eight minutes of Deadpool test footage based on the R-rated script:

I may or may have not seen some sort of test of footage that would blow your mind if you saw it and go holy crap and that’s Deadpool in costume. Katana swords, guns, shooting people’s faces off and making me laugh. And I may or may not have seen something that looks just like that. And you’ve got what would amount to the first R Rated X-Men movie. Because that script is R Rated. They may or may not have wanted to shoot eight minutes to see how it would play. And all I can tell you, it’s close. It’s closer that it’s even been to going, or going Naaah, that’s too scary a proposition to make a R Rated Deadpool movie. [transcribed by BleedingCool]

We didn’t post about it at the time because we put rumors from Liefeld in the same place we put rumors from Mark Millar and movie ideas Quentin Tarantino says he’s working on: in a file marked, “That’ll be cool if it ever actually goes into production.” It’s between the files marked “Kittens in a brandy snifter” and “drawings of Deadpool riding various unicorns”. As you can see, we are dedicated to bringing you the resources you need to thrive in today’s fast-paced economy.

Now we can move Liefeld’s statement into the “Holy crap, this probably did happen” file, because Coventry Telegraph is reporting the film is likely to go into production this year with Ryan Reynolds still signed to play the awesome, fourth-wall-breaking Deadpool. They also report 20th Century Fox wants to film another Wolverine movie with Hugh Jackman this year, but I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that.

[Deadpool] was introduced in X-Men Origins: Wolverine with Reynolds in the role but the new film will reboot the concept so it’s far closer to the comics. There has been talk that the script even sees Deadpool poking fun at his initial big-screen appearance, which will be portrayed as a work of fiction that isn’t part of the film’s own reality. [...] Reynolds has been actively involved in the script for what he regards as a personal passion project. [Coventry Telegraph]

Between this news and the previous news of Producer Lauren Shuler Donner saying the film would be an R-rated total reboot and of the hiring of visual effects guy Tim Miller as the director, it’s looking like Fox is serious enough about making an R-rated Deadpool to shoot eight pages of the script. We’re going to celebrate by eating tacos.

[Image credits: Buzzfeed and WeLoveFine]