With Deadpool 2 opening in theaters this weekend, I recently landed an exclusive interview with Ryan Reynolds to talk about one of the year’s most anticipated films. If you’re not aware, Reynolds has a screenplay credit on the Deadpool sequel, which shows just how involved he was in shaping the story of the sequel. During the interview, Reynolds talked about how the script evolved during the writing process, introducing Cable (Josh Brolin) and his complicated backstory in the comics, how director David Leitch elevated what was on the page, if they ever considered a title other than Deadpool 2, what they learned test screening the movie, the marketing for the film, and so much more. In addition, Reynolds talked about how excited he is to work with Drew Goddard on the X-Force movie, how they don’t yet have a script, the rating, and more.

As most of you know, Deadpool 2 follows Deadpool as he assembles a superpowered team to protect a kid (Julian Dennison) from Cable, a killer from the future. The film also stars Zazie Beetz, Morena Baccarin, T.J. Miller, Brianna HildebrandJack Kesy, and a few surprise guests.

Check out what Ryan Reynolds had to say below and make sure to see Deadpool 2 this weekend so no one can spoil all the surprise twists and turns.

Collider: So the first thing is, this is your first official writing credit on a big movie. How important was it for you to get a WGA card?

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Image via 20th Century Fox

REYNOLDS: Not at all. It had nothing to do with me. We largely followed the same protocol and practice we did on the first film. So, I actually think that was Rhett [Reese] and Paul [Wernick] who wanted that. And I think that's incredibly kind of them, we're all sort of like brothers. But we had less time to obviously write this one. The other one we had, we luxuriated in eight long years of purgatory. So, this time we were really kind of cramming. We were basically like the three little bears with their laptops sitting at my house, working on Deadpool 2 as soon as we could right after Deadpool.

How much did the script evolve through the writing process, and did you have any other big ideas that you kind pursued and then just realized, this isn't working?

REYNOLDS: We had a few big ideas that we pursued that we felt like would either perhaps work later, if we ever had the good fortune of doing more of these. But most of the core story there was intact pretty early on. It was something that we'd even discussed on the set of Deadpool 1, which at that time was just sort of a pipe dream for us, the idea that we'd be shooting a Deadpool 2. So, it was really going on it loving the character. We love the character, we love talking about it, we love getting into ideas and thoughts of things that we could possibly, situations we could put Wade Wilson, and stories you wanna tell. So, we hit the ground running pretty much with this story right after we got the green light for the second film.

You introduce Cable in the film. You joke about his complicated backstory in the movie. Can you talk about finding Cable's voice, and how much you wanted to reveal about the character in this film?

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Image via 20th Century Fox

REYNOLDS: We felt like Deadpool 2 was an introduction to Cable really, more than exploring the pantheon of complicated and complex backstories that exist out there for him. And even going forward, I think we're gonna kinda find a lane and stick to it. But I'm excited about the prospect of exploring Cable more. There's something interesting about the techno virus, and the idea that he's in some instances a dead man walking. So there's a lot to do there. But we love that character. And finding his voice on this particular film was pretty easy ‘cause Josh [Brolin] was the first guy that we wanted for the role, but then he wasn't available. So as soon as our production schedule pushed back a few months, then somebody, I think it was Dave Leitch, had the wise idea to say, “hey, maybe we should ask Brolin again, maybe he's available now.” And lo and behold he was.

Josh Brolin is fantastic in the role. But I have to give huge props to David, because he did such a great job with the action. How did David elevate what was on the page?

REYNOLDS: Dave elevated everything across the board. You need to sort of put him in this fiction hold kind of place with it, he was really largely responsible for the action. Of course he was responsible for the action, but he was wonderful at kind of walking the tight rope of tone. Which is always a difficult thing to walk, very difficult for everyone really. And it's something you have to be mindful of at every moment, every scene in the movie. So, he was great at seeing the macro, not just the micro. He was the guy that, I don't even think there was an action director anymore, I think of him a little more as a fantastic director. I mean he so understood the heart and the emotion of the story, and would always steer us back there when we would wander into the abyss of Deadpool's sort of insane, meta world. So, I can very easily almost go to far with it. And Dave was great about saying, hey let's get this stuff that's he's pushing things too far, but let's also grab the stuff that keeps the character grounded, and keeps us rooting for him, and keeps us sort of understanding his pain.

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Image via 20th Century Fox

At the end of the day, I think Deadpool's funniest when he's in pain, Deadpool sort of obviously filters his pain through a prison of humor, but we sort of find that the more pain we put him in, the more entertaining he is in some strange way.

Did you ever consider a title that wasn't Deadpool 2? Like Deadpool-colon-something else.

REYNOLDS: Yeah. We just kinda gave up on it. Because we had about 125 options. If you need a real answer, it just sort of gets too cute. And at the end of the day, we just all of us just kinda gave up. But we had so many options, from hilarious to literal.

I'm always curious about test screenings and what you learned through that process. I know you guys tested this movie a bunch. How did the film change as a result of the test screenings, what did you learn from audiences?

REYNOLDS: We didn’t— the movie always hit really hard with audiences, I mean harder than anything I've ever been a part of. But mostly it was connective tissue. Those things that you miss when you sort of sew— “you can't see the forest for the trees” sometimes, because you're just so in deep with it. And you're so versed with it, that you're trying so hard to get back and have that 30,000 foot view of the movie, and there were a couple little questions that people had here and there that we needed to sort of solve and answer. Then there was a couple little things that we just, when we were shooting the movie, we knew that we couldn't get in that moment, and we wanted to pick them up later. So it was little things really. It was all connective tissue stuff. And sort of the same as Deadpool 1. Deadpool 1 we went back to camera for a few more days than this movie, but we were largely grabbing connective tissue, not really full scenes or anything like that.

Was there any storyline or any plot that you guys removed as a result of the test screening? I'm always curious how films change, because, ultimately, editing is the final rewrite.

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Image via 20th Century Fox

REYNOLDS: Yeah, of course. No, we didn't remove any kind of plot. We actually added just a little bit of, again, just these little bridges, these little narrative bridges here and there. We added a little piece of the Cable/Deadpool fight on the convoy. And then a cameo. That was kind of it. There weren't any major storylines. The biggest storyline that changed was the Black Tom Cassidy storyline. Which wasn't really like an A story or anything like that, but it was kind of a seed spot for the third act that, it just got too expensive really. To be totally frank it was too expensive for ... ‘Cause our budget is not ... While the first movie was extremely successful, the budget for the second movie wasn't, we weren't sort of swimming in MCU money, or DC Universe money, or anything like that. You got to always remember it is Fox, and they do like to keep things reasonable. So it was largely due to that.

Everyone is so looking forward to X-Force, and I think Drew [Goddard] is such a talented writer/director. Can you talk a little bit about how you've been talking to him about the X-Force movie, and maybe what you, cause you have such ownership over Deadpool, what do you want to see in the movie?

REYNOLDS: Well, I just wanna work with Drew. I mean I love him. And he has such an interesting take on where he wants to take that world. And I see it being a real ensemble on a lot of levels just because I think it's interesting for Deadpool to kinda function in the way he does in his own universe. You always get to sort of find some way to position him as the underdog, but take everything away from him. But for him to function in an ensemble is a lot of fun. I think there's a real opportunity to not, kind of, burden the narrative by shattering Wade's life, and then beginning our movie you get to have him just be part of the team. Which is obviously a very challenging prospect for someone like Wade Wilson. So, I'm really excited about that. I'm excited about a couple new characters that we're talking about. And I'm really especially excited to work with Drew. He's just amazing.

You obviously are talking to Drew I'm sure on a regular basis, where do you think the script is now? Do you feel like this could be filming in the next few months, or later this year? Or have those conversations not come up yet?

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Image via 20th Century Fox

REYNOLDS: No, no we haven't even written a script. There's no script yet.

So there's nothing that everyone's happy with yet?

REYNOLDS: No, well there's a storyline that everyone's happy with. But there isn't a script yet. That's yet to come.

One of the things of course is that, listen, there's a possible upcoming Disney deal, there's a possible thing with Comcast. The future is kind of a little bit gray, but the studio has to proceed like nothing's gonna happen, because they owe it to their stockholders. So I guess my question is…do you think that X-Force will stay as an R-rated movie the way the Deadpool films have been? Have there been those conversations?

REYNOLDS: It really is at the moment, and maybe it's an illusion, and maybe I'm naïve, but it's business as usual at Fox. I also like to think, and again I don't know anything, I'm not an executive over there. But I like to think that the acquisition of Fox, by whether be it Comcast, Disney, or Myspace for fucks sakes, I like to think that whoever buys Fox is buying it to keep in tact, and to allow it to be its own entity. I mean, it's a valuable asset, it's under a totally different set of rules and leadership. So, I don't know, I would assume that it's just gonna be business as usual, but fucked if I know, it could be, who knows.

But I guess my question is, as a fan, I wanna see the movie, like the X-Force movie, whatever the rating needs to be to tell the story. So, for me, if it has to be PG-13, fine, if it wants to be R, fine. Do you guys internally have a rating in mind? Or is it still trying to crack the story?

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Image via 20th Century Fox

REYNOLDS: Oh, it's all story first. I don't think anybody's thinking about the rating. I mean, my sort of wild guess would be that it would be an R-rated movie, but again, I think everybody's just trying to ... Right now we're just assembling the troops to figure out what story we would tell. And it's a ways away from shooting still. And I don't even have an idea as to the exact date. But yeah, we'll see. Story first though.

When I saw the film, the audience absolutely loved Peter. And in the trailers, when I've been part of theaters, people just love seeing Peter. When did you know that-

REYNOLDS: I love Peter.

Yeah, when did you know that character was gonna hit?

REYNOLDS: I think on set. I mean, we're all massive Catastrophe fans, Rhett, Paul and I are. So, we love Rob Delaney, and we love what he does and what he brings. So, we sort of knew on set. He just had this sort of sensibility that fit so perfectly in our universe in an unexpected way. And I don't know, I hope to see him tons in the future. I think he'd make a great addition to the cast.

My last thing for you. Marketing the movie, you raised the bar on the first one, and you have continued to do it in the second one with all of the people you've gotten involved. Talk a little bit about how early on you were thinking about the marketing, and how much that plays into ... Just because it's so important nowadays to break through the noise.

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Image via 20th Century Fox

REYNOLDS: Yeah. We look at marketing like an extension of the film itself. I mean you wanna kind of attack it with the same level of detail that you would the film. You don't have the same amount of time or budget, obviously. But everybody's thinking out of the box. And I think it's inspiring for the marketing team at Fox as well, who deserve a ton of the credit as well, but we all do it together, the Fox marketing team is amazing. Rhett, Paul, myself we write and rewrite a lot of the stuff. There's a Fox marketing guy that writes a lot of the stuff, too. So it's just a big group effort. It's a nice little think tank for us. It's also a ton of fun. And Deadpool has direct relationship with the audience, I mean you get to talk to the audience directly, which is kind of a marketing dream. We get to do and say things that you just otherwise wouldn't in any other cinematic universe.

Completely. I really appreciate you getting on the phone with me. I could ask you a million other things. But all I'll say is thanks. And seriously congrats on the movie, it is a blast.

REYNOLDS: Thank you, brother.

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