DEADPOOL Writers Reveal James Cameron and David Fincher Helped Get The Movie Made

As if we didn't already love James Cameron and David Fincher enough already, now we can (partially) thank them for getting the upcoming Deadpool film off the ground.

Collider spoke with writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, who have been desperately working to get this movie made for the past six years, and they were very candid about the development process:

Reese: There were some really low moments. One of the lowest moments was when we turned in the script on the day The Avengers came out, a Friday, and The Avengers made what, over 200 and some million dollars opening weekend? And we thought for sure, “How do you read this script as an executive on that particular weekend and not greenlight this Monday morning?” and instead we got the word on Monday morning that Fox was gonna kind of rethink, given the success of The Avengers, rethink Deadpool possibly within the context of an ensemble as opposed to by himself, and we just went, “Ugh!” so that was a low moment.

But ultimately, it came down to getting the support of the right people at the right time:

Reese: It’s funny, greenlight decisions come down to people, people make the decision, obviously. But maybe not so obviously in the sense that you need that right combination of people, and it wasn’t until we had Jim Gianopulos, Stacy Snider, Emma Watts, and Simon Kinberg, that group of people, to come together and say, ‘Ok, now’s the time.” And we’re really lucky in that retrospect that I didn’t get made in a previous iteration because it might have been PG-13, or an executive who was doing it maybe because they thought the market was didn’t really get it. I think we finally got the right combination of people at Fox who just supported us 1000%, and I think because of that we’re all gonna get the Deadpool we always hoped for.

Wernick says at one point, he, Reese, director Tim Miller, and star Ryan Reynolds went as far as to beg the head of the studio to give them a greenlight:

WERNICK: Yeah. It all ultimately worked out. But if you were to track the email chain from Rhett, myself, Ryan, and Tim, over the course of 5, 6 years we all never gave up. We pushed, and pushed, and pushed, and sent emails where we over step boundaries all the time in terms of like, Jim Gianopulos got it like, ‘Please we’re grown men, we’re begging”.

But here's the part you're probably here to read about: how Cameron and Fincher helped them out:

REESE: And we had some angels on our shoulder too, this movie had some very quiet unsung heroes. One of them was Jim Cameron, who’s a friend of Tim Miller, and read the script at a key moment a few years back. He said he would read it and we were like, [Sarcastically] “Oh yeah, he will read it.” And literally he read it that night and got back to us the next morning.

WERNICK: He was procrastinating I think on Avatar 2.

REESE: But he read it and he went to Jim Gianopulos and he got it on the radar in a really big way. David Fincher was another guy who was a big help for us, he’s also a friend of Tim’s, and he loved the script and he pushed forward with the executives at certain key moments. Having guys like Fincher and Cameron pushing certainly didn’t hurt and we very well might not be sitting here if it hadn’t been for those two guys.

WERNICK: The ultimate angel on our shoulder really was Simon Kinberg. When he came aboard it really did kind of move what was delayed to blazing superhero speed and “let’s make this movie”.

REESE: Yeah. I mean, I think Simon in a way was probably most responsible, just his understanding of comics, his understanding of this character.

WERNICK: And the trust that Fox has in him.

The whole interview is worth checking out for big Deadpool fans if you have a few spare minutes, but I think it's cool that big shots like Cameron and Fincher took time out of their schedules to go to bat for their friend who had never directed a feature before. When you're sitting in the theater for Deadpool on opening day and the lights dim right before the movie starts, you should thank your lucky stars that these guys were on Tim Miller's side — otherwise, this movie might still be languishing in development hell.