During his Hot Ones appearance alongside his Deadpool & Wolverine co-star Hugh Jackman, Ryan Reynolds revealed his initial plan to combat spoilers from the new movie.
Host Sean Evans asked the actors what distinguishes a leak from being a good thing or hurting a movie. Reynolds admitted that this time around, he’s “shocked” that they managed to go through the film’s release without some of the “biggest surprises” being revealed ahead of time or even being hypothesized about online.
He then shared the elaborate plan he concocted to avoid having the superhero flick spoiled to fans — a scheme so secretive that even Jackman wasn’t privy to it. “The original idea with this movie to shoot a fake movie called Alpha Cop that was intentionally bad,” he said. “I even had one of the posters made — it was about two guys who are sharing one brain and together they make the ultimate cop. And the poster says, ‘Alpha Cop: Two Cops, One Brain. All Balls.’”
“It was meant to be kind of like horrible so 10 people in America would go see this movie on opening weekend and 5 minutes into the movie, the Marvel logo would flip up and it would actually be Deadpool & Wolverine,” Reynolds explained.
“Whoa, that’s cool!,” remarked Jackson, in awe of what could have been.
Jackson then recalled dealing with X-Men Origins: Wolverine leaking ahead of the date it was scheduled to hit theaters: “It was [a] rough, rough [cut], and it was leaked maybe a week before it came out, and I just remember someone saying, ‘I think it’s up to 10 million people that have seen it already.’” This was the kind of “bad leak” he was hopeful to avoid with his latest film reprising the Marvel character.
While the Deadpool & Wolverine stars thankfully didn’t have to deal with major leaks, they did have to take on the feat of getting through the increasingly scorching hot sauces—which proved to be both actors’ kryptonite.
By the time they got to the middle of the episode, Red Flag’s Black-Eyed Susan made Jackman sweat through his polo and get teary from the intense heat. “Hugh has never felt physical pain, so for him as a pampered starlet, this is an important rite of passage,” joked Reynolds as Jackman blew his nose. Reynolds also found himself going for the glass of milk and started feeling the heat: “This is the first time in my life where I don’t know if I’m peeing,” he joked.
Their intolerance did have some perks, as they were brought out some ice cream to cool off. It didn’t work, however, as Jackson—who tried scraping his tongue with his napkin in a moment of desperation—was convinced the treat had chilis in it.
