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The director of the first Deadpool film has revealed the pay packet he took home for creating the flick that kicked off the foul-mouthed franchise.
Whatever you think of the Deadpool films, the first one was undeniably a bit of a miracle.
The movie, which had been written by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, was in production purgatory before test footage leaked of Ryan Reynolds as the masked fourth-wall-breaking superhero.
While Reynolds has always hinted he may have been the one to leak it, it has never been revealed.
The reaction to the footage was overwhelming and the first movie was directed by Tim Miller.
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Miller did not return for the second or third films, but is still proud of his work
When asked about the film, the director told Collider: "You know what I feel? Nothing but pride. I mean, I feel like every time I walk down the aisles out there on the floor of CCXP and I see all these Deadpool figurines, I think they wouldn't be here if we hadn't made that film.
“I feel uniquely fortunate that I could be part of it.
“Then, then my second thought is, I wish my director deals had a piece of the merchandising so that I could get some money from all of that.
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“You guys might not know, but it's not really a profitable thing to be a first-time director in Hollywood, and I'll tell you exactly.
“I got $225,000 [£179,550] to direct Deadpool. I know it sounds like a lot of money, but for two years of work, that's not a ton of money. Not that I'm not grateful, I'm f*cking grateful, that's the way it is because you're supposed to when you're a first-time director.
“My agent said 'Dude, you make more on an episode of The Walking Dead!'”
While $225,000 does sound a lot, the news left fans shocked when placed among the context of how much the film, and its subsequent sequels that don't happen without the first, made.
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The first film made over $600 million, with the resulting flicks making $585 million and just over $1 billion.
This doesn’t even factor in the mountains of cash that Deadpool will have earned Marvel in merch.
Fans on Twitter were shocked to find this out.
One estimated he made roughly 60k a year from the film, tweeting: “$112,500 a year minus tax minus 10% to agent and/or manager minus 10% to a lawyer and you end up with (roughly) 60k a year making something that is going to make billions. the reality of Hollywood”.
The director has thankfully gone on to maintain a level of success that makes Deadpool seem like less of a fluke.
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He created Love, Death and Robots, a Netflix anthology show with a score of 86 percent on Rotten Tomatoes and 8.4/10 on IMDb.
Topics: Deadpool, Film, Marvel, TV, TV and Film, Ryan Reynolds, Deadpool & Wolverine
Michael Slavin