20 Facts About Ryan Reynolds Movies To Wade Through
Ryan Reynolds had an odd trajectory to fame, being in a bunch of garbage before falling uphill through the dredges of genre filmmaking, landing comfortably in the role of Deadpool, which seems to be a role that was made for in a lab specifically for his skills. His career has, like this paragraph, veered from horrible to great, so in celebration of that, here are a bunch of facts about him that you can bother your significant other with the next time he shows up on TV.
Pokémon Detective Pikachu
Despite seeming to be a stand-alone film, Ryan Reynolds' Pikachu isn't the star of the first film in a series but the … third? Depends on how you look at it. The end of the film confirms that it's a sequel to Pokemon: The First Movie (which, yes, does mean Ash and Reynolds/Pikachu could've met), but also to Home Alone. See, Pokémon Detective Pikachu features a scene with Angels with Filthy Souls, which is a film that only exists in the Home Alone universe – and, according to the newest Home Alone, it's getting a remake. Maybe they'll watch that in 30 years when they reboot Detective Pikachu.
Deadpool
The film originally could have been a lot different. Back before X-Men: Apocalypse ended the Fox series, Olivia Munn was in the running for Vanessa, Wade's main squeeze, but instead decided to play Psylocke, who in comics is a blind white woman who bodyswaps with an Asian woman that has ninja skills. X-history is weird.
Green Lantern
One of everyone involved's most hated films …
… one of the main reasons for the failure was the studio interference, creating a botched and scrambled film that made no sense – and it started before the film even began shooting. Despite being one of Ryan Reynolds' most well-known roles, Green Lantern was almost given to Bradley Cooper, and it would have if director Martin Campbell had his way … which might've contributed to the animosity on set.
Adventureland
There's a real Adventureland and Greg Mottola, the director, almost shot the film there. However, it had changed too much since he worked there as a kid to use. Despite that, the film was still scheduled to premiere the day the park opened.
Free Guy
Antwan, the villain of the film, played by Taika Waititi, is based on a real executive that the director of the film pitched Free Guy to … and yes, he turned it down.
Waiting
The movie, about a wait staff working a day in the life, has some weird Chris Pratt foreshadowing. The manager's full name is Daniel Christopher Pratt – which is almost the same name as Waiting star Anna Faris' later husband. Weirder still, the host of the training video in the film now frequently acts as Chris Pratt's body double. What was Chris Pratt doing when this movie came out? Oh, not much.
Buried
The film, which takes place entirely in a coffin, was created and filmed as a love letter to Hitchcock and his style of thriller.
Van Wilder
One of the stars of this film hated it. Kal Penn didn't want to take the role of "Taj Mahal" and hung up on his agent after finding out the name – but, hey, he needed the credits to pad his resume if he wanted the same role as "the pretty white boys on WB" so he took it.
Blade: Trinity
While Ryan Reynolds was one of the better parts of the film, playing a pseudo-Deadpool, the actual star of the film was having a full-blown war with the director. It got to the point where Wesley Snipes would only communicate with the director via hand-written notes … signed Blade. Of course, that was only after he allegedly strangled the director.
Croods
Despite being an all-age children's film, one of the writer-directors– Chris Sanders, maybe best known as the creator of Lilo & Stitch and voice of the latter – has some … less than all-age work, including a lot of pin-ups. One of those pin-ups? Well, let's just say if you wanted to see a character from the Crood naked, he's got you covered.
Croods: The New Age
The movie almost didn't even happen. Originally it was going to be about Ugga and motherhood, featuring the crew from the first film – including the pin-up maker – but it was canceled during the ever-continuing monopolization of Hollywood, only to later relaunch as a completely separate film.
Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle
Harold and Kumar is a movie about stoners going to White Castle, and like all stoner flicks, there were some fart jokes in there – but the sound designer couldn't get the right fart sounds – none of them sounded good enough. So he went to a truck stop bathroom. And recorded them there.
The Amityville Horror
Despite being one of the most popular horror stories of all time, and helping the career of the Warrens – ya know, the Conjuring couple – the Amityville is more fake than most ghost stories. While there was a murder on the site, most of the haunted occurrences were fully made up – with fake claims given to real people who later swore affidavits that they never even went to the house. Oh, and the murders? Yeah, the murderer made it up with the new family who moved in. Yet despite that, it's been remade 23 times and counting – that's almost as Amityvilles as Bond flicks.
Smokin’ Aces
Palme d'Or and Best Director Academy Award nominee Terrence Malick adores this film.
X-Men Origins: Wolverine
The only reason Reynolds was in this movie is that he wanted to be Deadpool so, so much. Despite the film being made during a writer's strike, therefore having no script and being a trash fire visible from space, Reynolds felt "blackmailed" into doing it because if he said no to Origins, he was saying no to Deadpool… forever.
Life
Before the film came out, everyone thought this was a prequel to Venom – given it's about a liquid goo symbiotic lifeform found by astronauts that kills almost all of them … and there's a crowd shot from Spider-Man 3 in the film. But despite all of that, it's a stand-alone movie … written by former Venom writers that coincidentally can be watched as a prequel, given that the Venom film begins with the Life Foundation recovering an alien goo symbiote from a crashed astronaut ship. Honestly, give it another couple of years (or another Sony leak or two), and we're gonna find out that not only was this a prequel to Venom, but Jake Gyllenhaal's astronaut became Mysterio.
The Nines
This wild film, about three-interlocking stories and the smallest budget imaginable, is scriptwriter John August's first professional directing work – and it's not at all like his previous films. While this is a trippy metastory that's more like Abed's film in Community than anything else, the writer's former credits include Charlie's Angels, Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and The Corpse Bride. Compare those … to this:
Criminal
This marks Ryan Reynolds sixth time playing someone whose body and brain have been swapped after Self/less, Detective Pikachu, Boltneck, RIPD, and The Change-Up. If Deadpool had come out any sooner, he probably would've been the one to get time-displaced into young Wolverine.
Ordinary Magic
When Deadpool goes back in time to stop Ryan Reynolds from making all his mistakes, he missed one. Reynolds' first, forgotten film, is Ordinary Magic, where he plays a magical Indian child named Ganesh.
The Deadpool Movie That Never Happened
Before Korg x Deadpool came about, Ryan Reynolds tried to make a Deadpool x Bambi film:
"I wanted to do a short film of Deadpool interrogating the hunter who killed Bambi's mom. But the whole gist of it is that Deadpool is actually just a huge fan."
Top Image: Marvel Studios
