Ryan Reynolds Says Deadpool Movie Got Greenlit Within 24 Hours After Footage Leaked

Did it seem like Deadpool became a reality very quickly after the test footage leaked online last summer?

Yeah, well, it wasn't just you.

Appearing on The Graham Norton Show recently, Deadpool star Ryan Reynolds said it was actually less than a day from when the footage hit the Internet to when the movie was officially greenlit.

"It's been the best and worst relationship I've ever been in," joked Reynolds. "Eleven years, I've been trying to get this movie made. We had a script, we did that about six years ago, then we had a little bit of test footage for the movie. That test footage sat on a shelf at Fox for four years, then about a year and a half ago, somebody accidentally leaked it on the Internet....And it just went nuts. The people started writing and flooding Fox, begging and pleading for the Deadpool movie to get made. Within twenty-four hours, we had a green light. We were making it."

Of course, Reynolds again denied-and-didn't-deny that it was he who was responsible for leaking the test footage online. Whenever asked, he tends to play up the possibility that it was him, while simultaneously denying it.

Based upon Marvel Comics' most unconventional anti-hero, DEADPOOL tells the origin story of former Special Forces operative turned mercenary Wade Wilson, who after being subjected to a rogue experiment that leaves him with accelerated healing powers, adopts the alter ego Deadpool. Armed with his new abilities and a dark, twisted sense of humor, Deadpool hunts down the man who nearly destroyed his life.

The film is in theaters on February 12.