Shawn Levy Talks Deadpool 3 at TIFF

Movies

Shawn Levy is saying all the right things about Deadpool 3. In an interview with Deadline from the Toronto International Film Festival – where he is set to receive the Norman Jewison Career Achievement Award for influential Canadians in the film industry – Levy talked about his love for Deadpool and the first two films in the series, as well as the movies Deadpool 3 most resembles, and they’re all great ones. He also spoke about location shooting and reacted to the leaked set photos that showed Hugh Jackman in costume as Wolverine. You can see the Deadpool portion of his interview by clicking the tweet below:

Shawn Levy teases the chemistry between Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman in 'Deadpool 3' #TIFF23 pic.twitter.com/tkoUrIlXKu

— Deadline Hollywood (@DEADLINE) September 9, 2023

I like what Levy has to say. 48 Hrs., Midnight Run, and Planes, Trains, and Automobiles are all classics as far as I’m concerned. They’re also buddy movies with a lot of entertaining friction between the leads, which is probably why Levy mentions them. Wolverine and Deadpool are not exactly bosom buddies, and based on Levy’s comments, they’ll likely be forced to work together to face whatever the threat is. Levy also contrasts those films with Airplane in terms of tone, and I think that points to an emphasis on gritty violence mixed with funny banter rather than extremely broad comedy. I like this, too, especially since Wolverine is one of the leads. In that vein, Levy saying it’s “very much R-rated” is promising. It’s also great to know they’re shooting Deadpool 3 on location rather than using computer-generated sets; I’m so tired of action movies looking like cartoons, even the ones with massive budgets. He also says they were “halfway through filming” when the actors’ strike caused production to stop, which is less than what reports said at the time. They still have a lot of work to do on Deadpool 3, which is probably why Disney took it off their release schedule. But I like what I hear so far, and despite the She-Hulk writer they added to the staff, I’m hopeful this turns out to be an increasingly rare good Marvel (maximum) effort.