©Walt Disney Co./Courtesy Everett Collection

It started with a text. Or, really, several texts.

That’s how director Shawn Levy and Ryan Reynolds convinced Chris Evans, Jennifer Garner, Wesley Snipes, Channing Tatum and more major stars to join Reynolds and Hugh Jackman in the otherwise top-secret cast of “Deadpool & Wolverine.” In the multiversal adventure, those actors reprised their roles from various Fox-era Marvel movies, including Evans as Johnny Storm from 2005’s “Fantastic Four” and the 2007 sequel “Rise of the Silver Surfer,” Garner’s Elektra from 2003’s “Daredevil” and 2005’s “Elektra,” Snipes from the “Blade” trilogy, and Tatum as Gambit — whose film never saw the light of day. Despite the many, many years that have passed since those names first donned their Spandex costumes, Levy says they didn’t require much persuading to get back in uniform.

“With pretty much no exceptions, every surprise casting in this movie came down to Ryan or I reaching out to the actor before lawyers and before agents [were involved],” Levy, who also co-wrote and produced the movie, told Variety July 29, the Monday after opening weekend. “It literally was us asking and invariably people saying ‘yes.’”

Thanks to those high-wattage cameos (some of which were kept under wraps better than others) as well as pent-up demand to see Jackman’s gruff mutant Logan emerge from retirement and finally pair with Reynolds’ wise-cracking Merc With a Mouth, “Deadpool & Wolverine” has obliterated box office expectations. After two weekends of release, the film has grossed $824 to stand as the second-biggest movie of 2024. It’s not an educated wish to declare it’s about to become only the second R-rated film in history to surpass $1 billion globally after 2019’s “Joker” with $1.07 billion.

In a spoiler-filled conversation, Levy spoke to Variety about assembling a who’s who of Fox-era Marvel stars, crafting Tatum’s intentionally unintelligible Gambit accent and the truth about those persistent Taylor Swift rumors.

How did the team pitch Wesley Snipes on returning as Blade?

Wesley’s return as Blade was a very early idea of Ryan’s. We wanted to explore themes of legacy, characters and their endings. Ryan had said, “Blade never really got that moment, and I think people don’t even realize how much they miss Wesley Snipes as Blade until they see him. Let’s give them that feeling.” So, Ryan reached out to Wesley. Wesley has not played Blade in a long time. He and Ryan have not been in close touch in a very long time. But we made clear to Wesley that this was not going for a joke. This was out of reverence for his legacy as this iconic character.

Where did Wesley’s line, “There’s only been one Blade. There will only ever be one Blade,” come from?

That was a scripted line, and Wesley thought it was hysterical. We tried a bunch of reactions from Deadpool but ultimately went with that eyebrows-raised-Deadpool-fourth-wall-breaking look.

What went into crafting Channing Tatum’s Gambit accent?

I am obsessed with Channing as Gambit in this movie. What went into this, first and foremost, is a decade of Channing wanting to play this part and a decade of Channing almost playing this part at Fox. I know this personally because back in those years, I was one of 25 different directors who met with Channing about directing the Fox “Gambit” movie, and yet it never quite happened. So when we decided to have Gambit in this movie, we knew it would be deeply gratifying for Channing.

We had scripted a lot of those borderline nonsensical lines. We wrote them into the screenplay. But then Channing added a lot of Cajun and French flavor. To this day, there are some things he says — like when he sees Hugh drinking his liquor and he throws a charged-up card his way, he says something that sounds a lot like cooyain-zwah — where I don’t fucking know the words. When Deadpool kept saying “That’s not a word. Who is your dialect coach … the Minions?” that was very much all of us on set. We absolutely loved it.

How quickly did Henry Cavill say “yes” to appearing as a Wolverine variant?

If we’re going to talk about him, we must call him by his actual credited name, the Cavillerine, which Ryan coined. I knew it was undeniable as soon as Ryan came up with that term. He said “yes” right away because he knew it would be subversive and playful. It was also with a lot of affection for him and his body of work, and playing with his legacy as a DC hero now that he’s appearing as a variant of a Marvel hero.

Was there ever truth to the Taylor Swift cameo rumors?

That was one of the loudest rumors that came out of nowhere. It was never true. Thank you, internet, for building such a smokescreen of rumors and half-truths so that no one ever knew what was going to happen.

There were a lot of gasps at the New York premiere at the jokes about Hugh’s and Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck’s divorce. Were those lines scripted? Were you concerned they’d be offended?

We never did a joke about or with anyone that we didn’t run by them first. Whether it was scripted, like the Daredevil line, or unscripted, like “He’s normally shirtless, but he’s let himself go since the divorce,” which was more of on-set improv, Ryan or I would always run the lines by performers and make sure everyone felt comfortable and that we were never punching down. It was all in a playful spirit that everyone felt good about. Those lines wouldn’t be in the movie if Hugh and Jen didn’t think they were funny.

Since he’s named-checked, was Ben Affleck ever in talks to return as Daredevil?

Early on, when we were looking at a 70-name menu of Marvel characters, Daredevil was on one of those lists, but never since those earliest of conversations, and never to the point of outreach or offers or anything like that. We made contact with everyone featured in the Fox tribute reel halfway through our end credits — and that’s dozens of actors who have been a part of that legacy. That was fun to build a love letter to those years, those characters, and all the actors who played them.

Were there any legacy characters you wanted in the film but that ultimately didn’t pan out?

When you go into the MCU and have unlimited access to this legacy of characters, you have to be your own disciplinarian. We wanted the movie to, above all, be warm-hearted. It can’t be emotional or poignant if you’re not vested in these characters. We didn’t want to go so crazy with the multiverse that you take your eye off the balls that count most. We were judicious. Several of these characters were in early drafts of the scripts and never changed. Pyro made sense because we knew Johnny Storm was going to be in the movie. And who has a certain superheroic capacity with fire? Pyro. Other ideas were more personal. Zeb Wells, one of our co-writers, has always been a mad fan of Tyler Mane’s Sabretooth. He wrote Sabretooth into a first draft, and it never left because it got him so excited, and that made the rest of us so excited. Others along the way, like the Blob and Azazel, evolved over eight months of pre-production. There was a brief conversation about, “Should we do the Vinnie Jones’ Juggernaut? Should we do a CGI juggernaut?” Ultimately, we thought that we had enough bringbacks in Aaron Stanford, Tyler, Jen and Wesley that we thought, “Let’s do another variant [with a different actor] and keep it non-CGI.” So we used Aaron Reed, who plays Dude in “Free Guy.”

Was it important to Ryan that his wife, Blake Lively, and their kids have cameos in the film?

It just honestly was that they were available and always nearby. A lot of times, we would call people into our edit room and have them record something. Little by little, all of the Reynoldses started being a part of the movie, including their youngest. As the proud godfather of Olin, that might be my favorite voice cameo.

Did you ever plan to show Lady Deadpool’s face?

We never discussed taking off her mask. So there’s always the future.

Ooh, is that a teaser?

It’s definitely not a promise. We also wanted this to be a standalone movie that leaves everything possible but serves no next movie. It is not a setup to anything, so we’ll see what happens.

At one point in the movie, Wolverine tells Deadpool he’s going to beat him up if a single word comes out of his mouth. How did he land on “gubernatorial” as that single word?

I don’t remember, except we went through a lot of words before we ended up on that one. Rarely is it the first idea. We like to really open up our minds and riff on alternatives. I do remember there was once a follow-up joke about Deadpool saying, “Is it pronounced guber-natorial? It’s a confusing word.” But that didn’t that didn’t make the final cut.

Do you have a favorite easter egg or reference in the film?

There is a super classic old-school Thor helmet in the foreground of a void shot that’s from the ’70s or ’80s. It feels so rooted in my own youth. There’s a picture of Tony Stark in Happy Hogan’s office, and we don’t see who is in the picture with Tony. There’s been a lot of fan theories about that, and we conveniently block the other person with an Iron Man helmet. That was a fun shot to line up. Obviously, the proof that Tony Stark has a heart was one of the most thrilling shots I’ve ever gotten to do in my career because that’s a part of genre history. And then maybe you’ll notice a walk-and-talk scene on a green rolling hillside, and there’s the charred vehicle and trunk from “Plane Trains and Automobiles” inexplicably parked on the hillside. That’s a nod to that movie, which inspired a lot of the DNA of our movie.

I almost forgot to ask you the most important question of all! Why was Thor crying?

I would love to know. And I would also love to be part of answering that question someday.

Does this mean you’re open to directing another Marvel movie?

I don’t know what form my Marvel future will take, but I’m very confident Marvel and I aren’t done with each other.