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Back when Deadpool was just a gamble wrapped in red spandex, Ryan Reynolds quietly pulled off a power move behind the scenes. The studio wouldn’t pay to keep the writers on set, so Reynolds did it himself.
Yep, you read that right.
“Fox interestingly wouldn’t pay for us to be on set,” writer Rhett Reese said on AMC’s Geeking Out (via NME). “Ryan Reynolds paid out of his own money, out of his own pocket.” That wasn’t just generosity. That was a calculated, heart-led investment from a guy who spent six years fighting to make Deadpool happen.
It worked. Big time.
By the time Deadpool hit theaters in 2016, it didn’t just break the fourth wall, it shattered box office records. On a budget of $58M, it raked in $783.1M. The film flipped superhero flicks on their heads with its R-rated humor, bloody action, and Reynolds’ unfiltered charm as Wade Wilson.
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But the real magic? It happened before the cameras even rolled. Reynolds had teamed up with writers Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese long before the greenlight. They were the brain trust. The voices behind the sarcasm, the one-liners, the unicorn jokes. And Reynolds knew their presence on set would make or break the film’s tone.
So when Fox passed on footing the bill, Reynolds didn’t blink.
The payoff was massive. Deadpool didn’t just revive Reynolds’ career, it became the defining role of his post-Green Lantern era. He went all in again for Deadpool 2 in 2018, and suited up for Deadpool 3, this time under the Marvel Cinematic Universe banner. Marvel president Kevin Feige even confirmed it kept its R-rating, keeping the unfiltered chaos fans loved intact.
Off-screen, the success paid off too. Reynolds pulled in $21.5M in 2016 alone. By 2021, he was taking a break from acting to focus on family life, but not before dropping that cheeky reminder on Twitter:
“If you include Deadpool’s cocaine rider, this is the most expensive reaction video ever made.”
No lies detected.
According to Celebrity Net Worth, Reynolds’ fortune sat around $150M, a major leap from his 2019 numbers. Paired with Blake Lively’s millions, the Reynolds-Lively household could afford to fund a few more passion projects without breaking a sweat.
Looking back, Reynolds putting his own money on the line for Deadpool wasn’t just wild, it was kind of heroic. It proved that sometimes, the people who believe in the story most aren’t just actors reading lines. They’re the ones writing checks to make it real.
And in Reynolds’ case? It paid off with red spandex, global stardom, and one of the most successful R-rated franchises of all time.
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