It's been well documented at this stage that Ryan Reynolds journey to get a Deadpool movie made was a passion project spanning almost eleven years. 

However it is interesting to hear the various twist and turns that were involved along the way. Reynolds say down for The Hollywood Reporter's Awards Chatter Podcast recently and revealed that he would have turned down Green Lantern if he'd thought there was a possibility of him starring in a Deadpool movie. 

Reynolds said that he auditioned for Green Lantern, not expecting anything to come for it but when he was offered the part he faced a real dilemma. He decided to call the Fox executive who first put Deadpool on his radar back in 2005. 

"I quickly called the executive I knew at Fox who had Deadpool and I said, 'Look, I am standing at the altar right now, and I'm about to say "I do" to someone else. I will walk away from this if you even think that you can make a Deadpool movie with me.' And he said, 'Unfortunately, no, I don't think that that's gonna happen.' So I went off and did Green Lantern."

What's interesting though is that while Reynolds was shooting Green Lantern, Deadpool writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick flew out to where he was staying and the three of them broke the story for Deadpool there. 

"We were breaking the story of the original Deadpool movie in a house that was being paid for by Green Lantern's dime."

However Reynolds was conscious of the fact that by taking on Green Lantern, he was effectively kissing any chance of playing Deadpool again goodbye. 

"I thought, 'If Green Lantern is a huge hit, they're never gonna accept me as both, and if Green Lantern is a huge failure — which it ended up being — they're never going to hire me.' "

Green Lantern of course went on to be a flop and although Reynolds went through a bad spell afterwards as he predicted, he was the only choice for the role as far as fans were concerned. Once the test footage directed by Tim Miller was leaked online, Fox couldn't have picked anyone else. 

You can listen to the full podcast here. 

Via THR