8 Most Genius Moments In Deadpool's Marketing Campaign

8. The Leaked Footage

Fox's Hall H panel at last year's Comic-Con was pretty unimpressive. Bringing actors and footage from movies like Hitman: Agent 47, Kingsman: The Secret Service, and The Maze Runner didn't generate an awful lot of buzz with the geeky crowd, and with no new X-Men movie until 2016 and a notable lack of footage from Fantastic Four (probably because they knew it sucked even back then), they had nothing Marvel related to show off. However, it was then that something weird happened. Completely out of the blue, Deadpool test footage appeared online. Fox started pulling the videos down as soon as they appeared, but they couldn't keep up with the way the video went viral. Despite big announcements from Marvel and Warner Bros., all anyone was talking about during Comic-Con was Deadpool despite the fact that it had become apparent by that point that his movie wasn't happening. The footage - which was all CGI, with Ryan Reynolds providing the voice and movements of Wade Wilson - was absolutely perfect, and even the websites who usually ignore anything which has been leaked were running with it. The response to the test reel was overwhelming positive, and while demand for a Deadpool movie had always been there, this footage had everyone crying out for the movie to be made. Fox had no other choice than to listen, and just two short months later, a February 2016 release date was set by the studio. Who leaked the footage? That's still a mystery, but it's the reason that the movie is being made. If I had to hazard a guess about who's responsible, I don't doubt for a second that Tim Miller and Ryan Reynolds may have somehow been involved. Hell, it could have even been Fox who decided to "leak" it in order to get an idea of whether or not the movie was really wanted!