The filmmaker on helming this year’s only Disney Marvel film, fan scrutiny and his co-writing bromance with Ryan Reynolds
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After Shawn Levy agreed to direct the third instalment of Marvel’s $1.5bn Deadpool franchise, Ryan Reynolds pulled him aside to make sure he understood what he was signing up for. “I want to do this movie with you, but I’m going to warn you right now,” Levy recalls the star telling him. “Deadpool is much harder to make than a regular movie because the love for it is so profound. The expectations will be immense.” In hindsight, he may have understated things. The discussion between Levy and Reynolds — who are also close friends — took place in early 2021, before it became apparent that the Marvel blockbuster machine was starting to sputter. Since then, the studio has released a number of flops, prompting anxiety on Wall Street and an intervention from Disney chief executive Bob Iger, who last year issued a company-wide edict: make fewer films and focus on quality. The upshot is that Deadpool & Wolverine will be the only Marvel film released by Disney this year. Expectations are high, to say the least — so much so that Levy and Reynolds, who were co-writers on the script, released a teaser for the film earlier this year that referenced the pressure on it. “I am the Messiah,” Reynolds says from underneath the red Deadpool mask. “I am Marvel Jesus.”
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It is a perfect example of what sets Deadpool apart from other Marvel ventures. Reynolds’ character is a foul-mouthed anti-hero who has a habit of breaking the fourth wall to make smart-arsed comments. Nothing, including the studio footing the bill for the film, appears to be off limits. “Want to hear something crazy?” Levy asks when we meet in the Tribeca neighbourhood of Lower Manhattan. “We wrote that line two years ago, before we ever knew it would be in any way referential to the current status of Marvel. It’s crazy that it stumbled into this moment where our movie is, in fact, viewed as messianic.” Levy, 55, is better known for launching his own film franchises than working as a hired gun for a juggernaut like Marvel. In 2006 he directed and co-produced Night at the Museum, kicking off a series that grossed more than $1.3bn worldwide over three films. His company, 21 Laps, also produced Netflix’s monster hit Stranger Things, for which he directed several episodes. “This is the first time I’m coming into a franchise that existed before I created it,” Levy says. “But whatever anxieties I had about working for the [Marvel] machine were unfounded. I’ve had as much creative freedom and empowerment on this movie as any movie I’ve ever made.” Shawn Levy (right) and Ryan Reynolds at the New York premiere of ‘Free Guy’, one of their earlier collaborations, in 2021 © Arturo Holmes/WireImage/Getty Images The film is also something of a new experience for Disney and its Marvel Cinematic Universe, which has grossed more than $30bn under the leadership of Marvel chief Kevin Feige since 2008. Deadpool came to Disney after the company’s 2019 acquisition of Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox, which did not have the same family-friendly ethos as Disney. Deadpool & Wolverine will be the first Disney Marvel film to carry an R rating in the US, which excludes anyone under 17. The first two films included very un-Disneyish profanity, a strip-club scene, nudity, a sex toy, graphic violence and lots of raunchy humour. There is little reason to think the latest will be tamer. “People think of the R rating, the very foul language and audacious violence, but what’s really the most fun about making Deadpool is the self-awareness,” Levy says. “He is literally turning and talking to the audience and commenting on culture, Hollywood and the movie itself. That opens up lanes of comedy that are a blast because you get to talk shit about everything.”
Steve Martin with Piper Perabo and Bonnie Hunt in ‘Cheaper by the Dozen’, 2003 © Alamy Levy admits to having a preference for light-hearted, family-oriented fare. He traces this to growing up with an alcoholic mother. “I lived through dark shit,” he says. “I know now that’s why I refuse to live in or create work that inhabits darkness. I need the faith and the positing of redemptive, happier endings.” He recalls feeling embarrassed about this when he was younger, especially when he saw his contemporaries taking on edgier material, but now declares himself at peace with it. “I think it’s important to affirm lightness and the possibility of connection,” he says. “That fundamentally hopeful stance definitely has found its way into everything I’ve made.” After the release of Deadpool & Wolverine, he will immediately turn to directing episodes for the fifth season of Stranger Things. “It’s going to be brutally exhausting,” he says. “I desperately need a break.” That may have to wait. After Stranger Things comes another marquee Disney franchise: Star Wars. Levy is in talks with Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy and chief creative officer Dave Filoni to direct a new film, which is in the early stages. “It’s going to take some time because it needs to deserve the Star Wars moniker,” he says. “That’s a specific needle to thread.” It seems Levy’s experience of fan scrutiny is only just beginning. ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ is in UK and US cinemas from July 26
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