Ryan Reynolds talks DEADPOOL test footage leak, production and more.

It took some time for DEADPOOL to get the go-ahead from 20th Century Fox, but the film is finally gearing up production this March for a February 12, 2016 theatrical release. Actor Ryan Reynolds tells Yahoo! Movies that he credits the film getting greenlit “100 percent” due to the test footage leaking online to rave reviews.

“I would have [leaked it] if I had known it would have caused that [kind of reaction]! Honestly, we all thought Tim Miller, the director, had leaked it. But I have since investigated that enough, in quiet moments when he was beyond the point of being penalized by anybody, and he said that he really didn’t do it. The initial [leak] came from Fox they think — someone recorded the footage on their iPhone and then released it. And then once that happened, somebody hacked into Blurred Studios and got the original footage in high-res and put it online.”

He says the crew and himself “completely assumed [the film] was dead in the water” until the major reaction to the test footage.

Unlike a typical big-budget production like X-Men, he says “we don’t get to make it with the budget of most superhero movies, but we get to make it the way we want to make it, so that’s even more exciting than having a catered lunch.

Reynolds tells Collider that they’re currently doing “lots and lots of tests” for the film, which begins filming with director Tim Miller next month in Vancouver.

“[He’s] always been the right guy [to direct this film]. He’s always, you know, shown nothing but a fierce loyalty to the canon of Deadpool and that’s the thing you look for first and foremost, a guy that is always wanting to push a little bit farther. And the advantage of doing a movie like this on a budget that is significantly less than any other kind of superhero movie is that you get to do things that you don’t get to do on other superhero movies so that’s what we’re most excited about.”

Will that lead to an R rating? “I have no idea… I don’t want to spoil anything so we’ll see. We hope.”