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| Actor Ryan Reynolds, who stars in Marvel Comics-based action flick "Deadpool 2," playing the fast-talking over-the-top anti-hero Wade Wilson, speaks during a press conference to promote his upcoming film at the Four Seasons Hotel in Seoul, Wednesday. The film will have a world premiere in Seoul on May 16. / Yonhap |
By Park Jin-hai
The second installment of the Marvel Comics-based anti-hero action flick "Deadpool 2" will premiere in Seoul.
The film's star Ryan Reynolds, who plays the fast-talking and over-the-top anti-hero Wade Wilson, visited Seoul on Wednesday to promote the film.
Wilson hunts the man who gave him mutant abilities, but also a scarred appearance, as the anti-hero Deadpool in its first installment. In its second, the wisecracking mercenary Deadpool battles the evil and powerful Cable and other bad guys to save a boy's life.
"I think it is essential that Deadpool be the ugliest man alive," Reynolds said during a press conference at the Four Seasons Hotel in Seoul, Wednesday. "It is important because, when you take something away, you focus more on other attributes. At the end of the day, obnoxious and over the top and vulgar as Deadpool is, he has a really good heart."
He said Deadpool is not an Avengers-like hero. "Deadpool is not the Avengers, not Captain America," Reynolds said. "Deadpool does not want to save the planet. He is just too myopic and selfish.
"Deadpool wants to save the kid in this movie. He wants this one thing he needs to do and I like that as an objective so small. He doesn't see so far into the future. He can only think about the moment, because, in his heart, he is a 15-year-old boy. He is impetuous and impatient. These are virtues that I happened to love about him."
Despite its adults-only rating, the relatively low-budget film's first installment attracted over 3.3 million people, fetching $23 million in sales from Korean audiences in 2016. Korea is one of the film's top Asian markets. Ticket sales for the 2016 film surpassed that of Japan, which grossed $18 million, and Singapore with $4.4 million. Due to its R-rating, the film could not be shown in Chinese theaters.
Some of Reynolds' Korean fans slept overnight at the airport to greet him in person. He arrived in Seoul early Tuesday.
Reynolds said he was thrilled to see how Korean Deadpool fans welcomed him at the airport and at the red carpet event Wednesday, and quipped that he is looking for a flat so he can settle in Seoul.
Reynolds, who was a co-writer on the franchise, said it took 11 years to make the Marvel Comics character into a film. "The burden was sort of lifted once 'Deadpool 1' was given a green light," he said. "So that was the biggest burden. It's sometimes a long game in Hollywood for something to pay off. Usually you have a project that's stalled and stagnated that many years and that's just generally never going to get a chance.
"Deadpool has been a war of thrashing and chipping away at the studio and doing everything that we could do to get them to pay attention to this property."
Once it secured enough money to film demo footage, it had to wait two more years before that footage leaked through the internet and fans demanded the film's production.
Reynolds says his latest R-rated film is a "family" film. "We always wanted the second film to be a family film," he said. "It is about family. 'Deadpool 1' is a love story masquerading as a comic book movie, while 'Deadpool 2' is a family film masquerading as a comic book movie."
Asked about a sequel, Reynolds said there would not be a "Deadpool 3." "I think, going forward, it would be like an X-Force movie, except the X-Forces would be much different, say, than the Avengers," he said. "X-Forces are generally made of a bunch of people who are morally flexible. They are the guys that do what the X-Men wouldn't do or couldn't do _ a ragtag group, men and women, who don't have a strong moral compass like the Avengers do or X-Men. Beyond that, I know it's a pipedream that would probably never come true but I would love to see a Deadpool-Logan movie."
"Deadpool 2" will premiere in Seoul on May 16.
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