Rob Liefeld Says FOX Knows Who Leaked Deadpool Footage (Exclusive)

Comic book creator Rob Liefeld claims that Fox knows who leaked that original Deadpool test footage, which inevitably got director Tim Miller and Ryan Reynolds' vision of the character onto the big screen. 

ComicBook.com got to speak with Rob Liefeld about his career in comics – including the infamous Captain America cover art that just sold for high-price. While Liefeld made sure to let the powers that be at Disney/Marvel Studios know he wouldn't talk about the upcoming Deadpool 3, he was willing to look back at how the Deadpool movie franchise first began, and appreciate the irony that leaks were responsible for generating the necessary interest to convince a stubborn studio to finally greenlight the film. 

When asked about whether or not he knows, years later, who leaked that Deadpool test footage, Liefeld said, "I do, and I'm not going to say it." 

Liefeld went on a lengthy explanation about why he wouldn't reveal the name of the Deadpool test footage leaker, going back to the example of X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009). That film (which had already been hampered by the 2000s Writers' Strike) got leaked online in its entirety, becoming one of the most pirated films of the year. Fox spared no effort to eventually track down a man in New York (Gilberto Sanchez) and arrest him in 2011. 

"Fox knows who leaked that [Deadpool] footage!" Liefeld stated with confidence. "They know who leaked that footage. They don't not know, okay? But I'm not going to be the one [to say]." 

Liefeld recounted how The Deadpool test footage leaked in 2014 immediately following San Diego Comic-Con that year. He surmised that the leaker, Sanchez, simply had the ambition to top the headlines coming out of SDCC that year – which was, in fact, the case. It wasn't just the overwhelmingly good response that put Fox on notice – it was also the fact that the Deadpool footage was more popular with fans than just about anything else in development at that time.

"It did the job," Liefeld concluded. "It showed Fox that they were sitting on something that people really wanted." 

...And the rest, they say, is history. 

Will MCU Deadpool 3 Be Rated R? 

Deadpool 3 will mark the first rated R movie in the MCU. 

This is not only a major departure for Marvel Studios themselves but for parent company Disney, who seldom releases movies rated R except through subsidiary divisions. The first two Deadpool movies each made over $700 million globally, despite having R ratings.

"Not only have Kevin Feige and Marvel and Disney supported this extremely Deadpool-ian, audacious, R-rated tone, they've also supported our super meta, self-referential self-awareness," Deadpool 3 director Shawn Levy told Wired. "Some of the jokes are dirty, some of them are cultural observations, but that's what we love about Deadpool, that he knows he's in a movie, even though the stakes are real. Our movie is very loyal to that DNA too, with tremendous Marvel and Disney support, in making fun of and being self-aware about everything, including themselves."

Deadpool 3 has a release date of July 26, 2024.