Shawn Levy has an impressive list of credits to his name, including Night at the Museum, Free Guy, and Stranger Things. Deadpool & Wolverine will be his biggest movie to date, but it isn't the first time a Marvel project has hit the filmmaker's radar.
Levy worked with Hugh Jackman on Real Steel and Ryan Reynolds on Free Guy and The Adam Project, meaning he was already good friends with both actors.
However, before Reynolds pitched him on helming what was then Deadpool 3, Levy had already passed on the chance to take charge of 2013's The Wolverine!
"On the set of The Adam Project, Ryan asked me if I would consider doing Deadpool 3," he tells Empire Online. "And I remember him saying, 'I know you’re gonna say no, but I’m really going to try and talk you into it.' And my response was, 'I’m not gonna [frick]ing say no, are you kidding? It’s a hard and immediate yes, sir!'"
"When we were making Real Steel, Hugh was looking to do The Wolverine, and he asked me if I wanted to do it," Levy adds. "And like a moron, I said, 'No.' Because I was thinking at that time, 'Well, it’s your fifth time playing the character, I’m doing original films et cetera.' And I regretted it deeply for years."
"And so, when the opportunity came around again, thank God I was older and wiser enough to jump at the opportunity."
James Mangold ended up directing The Wolverine and later returned for Logan, a movie which ended Jackman's tenure as the character...until Deadpool & Wolverine, of course.
As for what made this movie more appealing than the clawed mutant's second solo outing, Levy says, "These are wildly different characters. You have the Merc With The Mouth, and you have a guy who doesn’t even like words very much. That is not a recipe for a love story, that’s a recipe for conflict. And there’s something delicious about that conflict."
After a rough couple of years for Marvel Studios, all eyes are on Deadpool & Wolverine to succeed and provide the MCU with its biggest hit since 2012's Spider-Man: No Way Home. Levy does seem to be the right man for the job and there's already been chatter about his potentially being enlisted for Avengers 5 or Avengers: Secret Wars.
Deadpool & Wolverine arrives in theaters on July 26.