Comics
[Interview] Inside ‘Deadpool 2’s Monster Battles and Comedy Fights
Deadpool 2 is not your typical superhero movie. It’s full of R-rated gore and language, plus all sorts of mutant mayhem. One of the film’s climactic battles has Colossus vs. another CGI character who will make X-Men fans happy. Even though it’s two CGI characters, director David Leitch of John Wick fame still got to choreograph them.
“That was really an interesting experience for me,” Leitch said. “As a fight choreographer and a stunt coordinator coming up in the business, I like to work with real stunt guys and choreograph that way. That’s how we approached that fight in the third act. There’s a lot of analog rehearsals with stunt people. We did some motion capture. We had the animators help and take over from there but it is fun and liberating in the CG world because you can literally do anything. It’s fun that way.”
Another striking fight scene features a full speed Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) dispatching henchmen, while his target runs away in slow motion. Leitch explained how they did it.
“That shot in the meth lab, there is a technical achievement,” Leitch said. “It’s a motion control shot. The camera rig shoots two passes of the action, one at one frame rate and one at normal frame rate. So we did a pass with Sergei first at 48 frames. Then we do a pass with the background action and then we line up the two takes together. It’s a real tricky logistical puzzle to get everything on stacks and working and timed and comping those two layers together. That shot took an entire day of rehearsals and photography.”
Deadpool movies can also have fights that don’t need to be badass. Leitch said it’s a similar exercise crafting a comedy fight.
“You’re building a rhythm and a timing,” Leitch said. “It’s often like telling a joke. You’re building up rhythm and you’re finding that perfect beat to pull the rug out. That’s what’s fun about Deadpool. We can have fight scenes that don’t have to be over the top and so bombastic and violent, but then we can also have them. I think the tone of Deadpool can literally go anywhere, and then you can always bring it back to this core emotional story that he’s going through. It’s so fun in a Deadpool movie how many tones you get to work with, how many palettes you get to work with.”
You might think that because Deadpool wears a mask, they can add lots of jokes with ADR. Leitch said most of the masked dialogue sticks to the script.
“No, the script came in and it was so strong, we often had a hard time beating it with alts or improv,” Leitch said. “There are moments of things that we changed that actually moved the needle in a positive way, but man, there’s a lot of the original. Look, I love the mask and it was fun in post to find those moments that heightened it, but I can’t stress enough how strong the original material was. We’d always go back to it, like man, it’s hard to beat that joke.”
One addition to the script was a title sequence that spoofs the animated titles of James Bond movies.
“That was something that wasn’t in the script,” Leitch said. “There’s a moment where we kind of needed to have a moment for the audience to breathe. As I put the movie together, you feel like we need a breath here. It felt like a late title sequence might work for that. I had worked in some storyboards and pitched a sequence that could land there, and then we looked for a thematic song in the spirit of a Bond movie that worked for the arc of our characters.”
Deadpool 2 opens May 18.
Comics
‘You’ll Never Leave This Place Alive’ – IDW Dark’s Next Horror Comic Will Make You Question Reality
Five friends. Four houses. One perfect life. Bloody Disgusting is excited to exclusively announce You’ll Never Leave This Place Alive, a brand new horror comic from IDW Dark.
From Eisner-Nominated writers Jackson Lanzing and Collin Kelly, and rising horror artist Heather Vaughan, You’ll Never Leave This Place Alive is described as a “paranoia-laced, socially-conscious, horror mystery that will leave you questioning reality, and reveal that this crafted world is more of a nightmare than the idealistic dream they were expecting.”
Phoebe Joplin has never questioned the world her parents built: a secluded community where she and her friends were raised to be smarter, stronger, and better than anyone else. No distractions. No dangers. No secrets. Until the night of their graduation.
When one of them dies under impossible circumstances, Phee starts to pull at the edges of her perfect life—and what she finds is something far more terrifying than she ever imagined.
Because this place isn’t a sanctuary. It’s a cage. And no one who discovers the truth ever leaves it alive.
Collin Kelly & Jackson Lanzing (Batman – One Bad Day: Clayface, Star Trek: The Last Starship) co-write the upcoming IDW Dark horror comic, featuring art by Heather Vaughan.
Jackson Lanzing said in a statement to Bloody Disgusting, “You’ll Never Leave This Place Alive is in many ways a spiritual successor to our last creator-owned horror, The Principles of Necromancy – a dive into the promise and consequence of playing god with the blood of innocents. But the Hivemind book this reminds me of most is Clayface: One Bad Day. This is a deeply human story with intensely raw emotions – five best friends and their five mysterious parents, tearing one another apart for the promise of some impossible glory that’s waiting just beyond their darkest actions. We’re thrilled to be bringing this story to life with our long-time partner in crime, editor Heather Antos, at IDW Dark – and we’re particularly excited to give our Clayface fans a new, brutal and emotional horror made just for them.”
Adds Collin Kelly, “We’re deconstructing a feeling that seems universal these days; our elders have a death grip on their power, without any intention of giving it up to the generations that come next. YNLTPA is about growing up with the limitless potential of the future… and realizing how much it’s a lie we’ve been fed to keep us under the yoke of the past. Bringing this brutal experience to life is our artist and co-creator, Heather Vaughan, who brings an incredible amount of humanity to our cast. But it’s in our youthful leads that Heather’s art really shines – you are going to fall in love with these young people, even as they go through the worst experience of their lives. What we’ve all crafted together is going to be tragic, painful, but above all else, sincere – with a future so uncertain, there’s only one thing we can trust: you’ll never leave this place alive.”
“Some horror stories are about monsters in the dark. YNLTPA is about realizing the monsters raised you,” previews Senior Group Editor Heather Antos. “Working with Jackson Lanzing and Collin Kelly on this series has been a dream in the darkest possible way. They’ve built a story that’s layered, brutal, and deeply emotional, and every issue gives artist Heather Vaughan opportunities to push the art into places that feel both haunting and deeply personal. Some horror comics will keep you up at night…this is one that will stick with you for years to come.”
The first issue of You’ll Never Leave This Place Alive goes on sale October 14, 2026! Make sure to pre-order at your local comic shop by September to guarantee a copy.
Exclusively check out the various covers for Issue #1 down below.
IDW Publishing’s horror imprint IDW DARK features comics like A Quiet Place: Storm Warning, Smile: For the Camera, The Exorcism at 1600 Penn, Beneath The Trees Where Nobody Sees, The Twilight Zone, Event Horizon: Dark Descent & Event Horizon: Inferno, and more.
You must be logged in to post a comment.