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There’s a 30 percent chance Ryan Reynolds did something illegal to get Deadpool made

Alex Abad-Santos is a senior correspondent who explains what society obsesses over, from Marvel and movies to fitness and skin care. He came to Vox in 2014. Prior to that, he worked at the Atlantic.

Human smirk Ryan Reynolds made a visit to The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon this week to talk about Deadpool, which opens February 12. Deadpool's release is a dream for Reynolds, who had been pushing to get the movie made for the past 11 years.

What helped the movie along was some leaked test footage that popped up on the internet. And Reynolds revealed to Fallon that he may have leaked said footage.

"Just a little over two years ago it leaked accidentally on the internet," Reynolds said, explaining that it would have been illegal. "I'm 70 percent sure it wasn't me."

That leaked test footage ended up gaining a lot of fan support online, which ultimately helped break the movie out of production purgatory. Rob Liefeld, the comic book creator behind the character of Deadpool, talked about the leak's impact to Cinema Blend in June:

I had meetings on the Fox lot that following week [after the footage leaked], and that Deadpool footage was all the buzz. It had an impact. You could see it and feel it in the executive suites. It was palatable.

Now we have the Deadpool movie, and there's a 30 percent chance Ryan Reynolds had something to do with it.