Leaked Deadpool Test Footage Was Shot During Green Lantern’s Opening Weekend

You know the one – that by-now infamous test footage of the Merc leaping into a black SUV and beating seven bells out of the local thugs? Apparently it was shot on the weekend Green Lantern released.

Or so says Deadpool creator Rob Liefeld. The comic book scribe recently sat down for a Q&A session with Collider (h/t Screen Rant), in which Liefeld revealed that, yes, Ryan Reynolds actually filmed that incredible test footage during Green Lantern‘s opening weekend. Which really shows the actor’s faith (or lack thereof) in the doomed DC epic.

He’s since cut the film to pieces with numerous in-jokes and gags, culminating in the Deadpool 2 post-credits scene where the Merc journeys back in time to execute Ryan Reynolds in real life before he signs his life away to Green Lantern. It’s all in good humor, of course, as Reynolds has certainly landed on his feet since the film flopped in 2011 – right around the time when he was already committing to the Merc With a Mouth, as Liefeld tells Collider:

I would go watch that footage at Tim’s studio for three years. People forget! That footage was filmed in 2011. Ryan filmed that the weekend Green Lantern came out. I was at Blur studios. Ryan filmed that the weekend Green Lantern was opening, that’s how old that footage is!

So while Warner Bros. had hoped to launch a franchise around Green Lantern, destiny had other plans for Ryan Reynolds and Deadpool, given the Merc has now released two $700M+ movies in the space of three years.

Next up for Reynolds and his team is the X-Force pic, which currently has Drew Goddard attached to write and direct. You know, as soon as he wraps work on Bad Times at the El Royale.