At the Toronto International Film Festival, Ryan Reynolds confirmed what fans have suspected for years: he leaked the 2014 Deadpool test footage himself. He called it “the wrong thing” that he is ultimately grateful for, since the leak helped unlock the movie that studios had resisted.
That clip was built by director Tim Miller to show how an R-rated, fourth wall breaking Deadpool could work. When it hit the internet in 2014, fan response was immediate and loud, pushing 20th Century Fox to move ahead on a film that had been stuck in limbo.
The results speak for themselves. Deadpool (2016) earned about $782.6 million worldwide and Deadpool 2 followed with roughly $785.9 million. Deadpool & Wolverine took the character into the MCU and crossed $1.33 billion globally, becoming the highest grossing R rated film on record.
Reynolds had teased his involvement before, joking last year that he “might have provided an assist.” This week’s onstage admission closes the loop on a decade of winks and denials.
Why it matters: this is a rare case where a leak genuinely changed studio calculus. It helped prove there was an audience for adult oriented superhero stories, set the tone for the franchise, and paved the way for Deadpool to become a box office pillar inside the MCU.
Sources: Entertainment Weekly
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