‘Deadpool’ Director Breaks Down That New Red Band Trailer

The Merc With a Mouth really earns that nickname in the latest red band trailer for Deadpool, the profane, balls-out and very violent new superhero-adjacent film that sees Ryan Reynolds reprising his role — albeit far more faithfully — for director Tim Miller. The new red band trailer offered plenty of previously unseen footage and raised a few questions — questions that Miller and producer Simon Kinberg are happy to answer in their official breakdown of the trailer.

Empire hosted another trailer breakdown feature, this time for Deadpool, chatting with Miller and Kinberg at great length about the upcoming film and some of the new stuff featured in the latest preview. Speaking in a more general sense, you might notice that the setting of the film has a sort of uncanny effect, in that it’s both familiar and sort of alien at the same time. Miller says they call it “pre-post-apocalyptic Detroit,” which sounds pretty accurate:

I always like the way the writers described the city in the script which was ‘a pre-post apocalyptic Detroit’. And that’s about as specific as they got. And I liked that. You know, it doesn’t say that it’s anywhere specific. I think there are some certain geographical clues in our story in that everybody knows that the X-Men live in upstate New York-ish and so we can’t be too far away. But the idea was that it should look like a shitty place because you want to set Deadpool and his world apart as something different: grittier, nastier, you know, more like Daredevil where it’s down in the streets where he’s dealing with small-time shit that the X-Men and their shiny hi-tech world don’t deal with.

The director goes on to describe Reynolds’ titular anti-hero as a “kid with ADD,” and offers more details on each of the supporting characters. First up is Angel Dust, played by MMA fighter Gina Carano:

I mean, Gina was amazing, Her powers in the comics are - she’s a little like the Hulk, in that the angrier she gets, her adrenaline sort of activates this super strength. So the angrier she gets, the harder she fights and stronger she is, so that’s her power in the comics and we try to play that up a little bit in the fight sequences.

Another thing you might have noticed in the various trailers is the different versions of the same scene between Wade Wilson / Deadpool and T.J. Miller’s Weasel, in which the latter offers a range of insults to describe Wilson’s scarred appearance. Kinberg says Miller used his comedic background to do a lot of improvising, resulting in “an embarrassment of riches.” Hopefully we’ll see a lot of those alternate takes on the eventual Blu-ray release.

Speaking of mouthy characters — although Brianna Hildebrand’s Negasonic Teenage Warhead seems very quiet in the trailers, Miller says she’s actually quite the opposite:

I think Deadpool wishes she’d keep her mouth shut more than she does in the film! Because she’s quite snarky. But, you know, her whole attitude is this disaffected teen who thinks Deadpool’s just a douchebag. And so that’s her whole attitude. She’s really not that silent in the film or at least she’s silently surly because she just can’t be bothered to engage with this asshole. That’s the basics of her personality: silently shaming, judgmental personality.

Miller says they initially chose to include her based on her cool name, but they also needed a “trainee” to work with Colossus, who helps keep the film more directly connected to the X-Men universe. But don’t expect too much overlap, as Miller adds that it’s “a good thing in small doses.”

There’s a whole lot more to the interview, which is worth a full read for details on chimichangas, Deadpool’s weapons, a few secondary characters and Miller and Kinberg’s explanation of how the upcoming film is actually a Christmas movie.

Deadpool hits theaters on February 12, 2016.