DEADPOOL Director Tim Miller Talks About Breaking The Fourth Wall, GREEN LANTERN Jokes, and More

I'm sure by now you've all seen the new red-band trailer for Deadpool, the long-awaited film starring Ryan Reynolds. I think it's just starting to sink in for a lot of people that a Deadpool film is really, truly, finally on the way, and that trailer lit up the internet last night in a big way.

Director Tim Miller spoke with Empire to break down the new trailer, and I'd recommend heading there to read the full piece. But I've pulled what I consider to be the best section of the interview and pasted it below, and in it, Miller speaks about the difference between Wade Wilson and Deadpool breaking the fourth wall, shooting more Green Lantern jokes, the danger of being too obscure for audiences, and more:

"[The line 'don't give me a green suit'] got a good laugh at Comic-Con. For the most part, we try to stick to the rule that Wade Wilson can’t break the fourth wall. He’s not aware that he’s in a movie. Deadpool is. He only breaks the fourth wall when he’s Deadpool. So we’re tiptoeing on the edge of breaking our own rule there, because he’s still Wade at that point. We shot a few more Green Lantern jokes, but I’m not sure how many will survive the cut. Ryan definitely had some Green Lantern issues to work out. We had about a minute’s worth of dialogue between him and Colossus where he talks about it, like, 'So a guy comes with a thousand-dollar suit and says, "We want you to play a superhero," but there’s no script yet and the release date is completely unmakeable…' He goes on this whole anti-Green Lantern run, but I’m not sure it’ll stay in, because probably not even half the people in the theatres will get those jokes. You can’t only play to the comic fans. He’s spouting weird shit all the time, and if you don’t pick up on every joke, that’s fine. But you can’t leave everybody behind all the time. Any joke that an audience needs to look up on the internet after the movie is not something I’m in favour of. But that scene’s one for the DVD extras, for sure."

I know the fanboy population loves the character of Deadpool, but I'm wondering if Miller's concern about leaving the audience behind is going to end up applying to the whole movie. This looks a lot dirtier and grungier than something like Guardians of the Galaxy, which was another comic book film I wondered if it would play to a larger crowd than just fans. Guardians obviously ended up doing gangbusters numbers, but I can't help but feel like Deadpool may be next year's Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: something the geek crowd adores, but falls flat for everyone else. What do you think?