Chapter 260: Elevating Filth to a New Realm

From the inception of the production team, Murphy had communicated with all the key creative personnel, emphasizing the importance of not forgetting this principle during filming.

He had worked with this team on "Saw," "Planet Terror," and "Sin City," three quintessential cult noir films. These films' styles would undoubtedly influence everyone involved in the production. However, Murphy did not want to make "Deadpool" similar to those three films.

The reasons are simple. The film's production by 20th Century Fox, a $60 million investment, and it being his first foray into mainstream commercial cinema meant that "Deadpool" could not become like those films.

"Deadpool" is a typical commercial film, and Murphy had higher box office expectations for it.

In Hollywood, talking about box office earnings might seem unsophisticated or a downgrade of artistic integrity. However, directors who don't discuss box office are considered disingenuous.

Hollywood is currently in a golden age for mainstream, big-budget commercial films. Although success for directors in Hollywood has never been about a single criterion, box office earnings are extremely important. In this highly commercialized and industrialized film industry, whether art film directors or commercial directors, it's almost impossible to be a director without box office appeal and market value.

Initially, Murphy was interested in superheroes that suited the era more, like Marvel Comics characters and Batman, but reality does not shift according to personal will. Eventually, he had to focus on the unconventional character of Deadpool.

"Deadpool" carried many of Murphy's hopes. He knew that if his first attempt at mainstream commercial cinema failed, he would likely be relegated back to the independent film circuit for a long time without good opportunities.

Therefore, "Deadpool" had to compromise with commercialism to avoid being too niche or dark.

Simply put, Murphy wanted "Deadpool" to attract a wide audience and contribute to the box office.

Thus, "Deadpool's" noir style was more reflected in its color design and dark humor, rather than its content and theme. For example, the film's color scheme would mainly feature gray, dark, and cold tones extended from black.

In Hollywood films, color tones often directly represent the film and its protagonist.

For example, the black that Murphy often used represents denial, power, sexuality, mystery, fear, anonymity, displeasure, depth, style, evil, sadness, regret, anger, and more.

As long as the film's tone stayed on track, filming would be relatively smooth.

From the second day, Murphy added a lot of action scenes and continued using high-speed slow-motion to contrast speed with slowness. During action scenes, he acted as a reviewer, leaving pure action scenes to the action director team to control.

However, all filmed action scenes had to follow his vision, matching Deadpool's character.

In the following days, Murphy was open to suggestions from Seth Rogen for humorous scenes. He had brought Seth Rogen into the crew as an assistant director specifically to help with humorous and comedic scenes.

There are no all-knowing, all-powerful directors, and Murphy is no exception. For instance, language humor could be expressed through actors like Robert Downey Jr., but typical American physical humor was something Murphy struggled with. He wasn't very good at comedy and didn't grow up in this country, making it hard for him to understand and control American physical humor.

For example, American humor often involves sexual organs and large-scale sexual innuendos through body movements, which Murphy didn't find funny, but some people could laugh uncontrollably at.

It's no exaggeration to say that he and those around him had completely different senses of humor.

Compared to this, the dialogue designed by Robert Downey Jr. for Deadpool was more interesting to Murphy.

Those who had designed dialogue for Deadpool included Murphy, Robert Downey Jr., Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill, and even included a line from Gal Gadot in a scene where Wade Wilson confesses his love to Vanessa.

The dialogue pushed boundaries of vulgarity to a new realm. In the script, Deadpool's lines were essentially never "clean." The simple and straightforward "F-word," and various levels of risqué jokes emerged spontaneously.

According to Robert Downey Jr., watching this film would be like a "vulgarity level" test for your friends. The audience members who laughed the most frequently and loudly were definitely "level 10 scholars of vulgarity," because they understood all the jokes from the straightforward to the subtly risqué. Meanwhile, viewers who only counted how many "F-words" appeared were naively innocent.

However, no matter how vulgar the jokes were verbally, Murphy intended to elevate vulgarity to a new level with actions.

There were also various passionate scenes. In one large-scale shoot, the male and female leads not only teased Yoda and Luke Skywalker but actually spent a year in bed together, from Valentine's Day to Christmas.

Having previously directed and succeeded with "Sin City," Jessica Alba, who played Vanessa, was no longer averse to filming large-scale action scenes.

But for rating considerations and to be featured in more overseas markets, Murphy restrained much more than in "Sin City." The most explicit content involved Jessica Alba being topless, with Robert Downey Jr. covering key frontal and rear areas.

Some things couldn't be directly shown on screen but could suggestively provoke the audience's imagination. For instance, Murphy then shot a scene implying Vanessa performing anal sex on Deadpool...or rather, Vanessa taking Deadpool's "back door."

Even if the visible scale of the shot had a baseline, the "off-screen" content definitely "polluted" viewers' eyes!

To put it accurately, although the shot wasn't fully captured on camera, Deadpool was definitely the first superhero on screen to be "dominated" by a woman.

In all the scenes filmed, Murphy still carefully controlled the scale. He was very aware that he was making a mainstream film, not one of those pure noir cult films.

Thus, Murphy aimed to make the entire film outwardly vulgar but internally warm, filled with so-called mainstream North American aesthetic values. Just like Deadpool himself, filled with various unheroic qualities, but ultimately racing down the hero's path.

He intended to mix all the vulgar, violent, dirty, and cheap elements together, then form a core that was both warm and touching.

Among them, the unconventional relationship between Deadpool and Vanessa that culminated in the most pure and sincere love, and Deadpool's "do or die" interactions with friends, undoubtedly aligned with so-called mainstream values and aesthetic preferences.

After shooting at Fox Studios for half a month, Murphy led the crew to a bar arranged by Paul Wilson. They hired a large number of muscular, fierce-looking Australian extras to start filming the mercenary bar scenes.

This was where Deadpool and Vanessa first met.

The bar was crowded, filled with the smell of alcohol and impulsiveness. One after another, the extras came out of the makeup truck outside and entered the bar. Then, Seth Rogen and Paul Wilson led them to their spots and reminded them of what to pay attention to during the shoot.

David Roby was in charge of setting up the lights; Helena Espola adjusted the bar's background, covering a whole white wall with slightly old and dim scenery; Jack Watson stood next to Robert Downey Jr. and Jessica Alba, directing two makeup artists to touch up the leads' makeup.

Murphy, standing in a corner of the bar, discussed the upcoming shoot with Phil Lasher.

"I don't need shaky camera work," he vetoed Phil Lasher's suggestion. "Let's ditch the handheld camera in favor of the Steadicam."

Phil nodded. "That's doable."

"I also need your main camera for the wide shots," Murphy pointed towards the bar counter. "After the female lead makes her entrance, the Steadicam should follow her, capturing her movements in a semi-circular motion."

The shooting would definitely proceed according to the actors' movements.

After wrapping up his discussion with Phil, Murphy walked over to Robert Downey Jr. and Jessica Alba to give them a brief. Once all the preparations were in place, he immediately announced the start of filming.

"Oh, oh, oh, baby..."

At the bar counter, Jessica Alba, dressed provocatively, emerged from behind Robert Downey Jr., her hand deliberately grazing over his body in a teasing manner, her voice laden with seduction. "Are you going to let it all out?"

A cinematography assistant with a Steadicam kept the lens focused on Jessica Alba.

This line also identified Vanessa's profession: a woman who makes a living by selling her body.

Jessica Alba moved to stand in front of Robert Downey Jr. "Are you going to spend all your money?"

"Getting hard, huh..." Robert Downey Jr. made an ambiguous gesture before asking, "Do you know who I am?"

"Who are you?" Jessica Alba placed a hand on Robert Downey Jr.'s chest, sliding it downwards. "You're going to tell me who you are."

She took the lead, "I'm Vanessa."

Robert Downey Jr. responded, "I'm Wade."

Such introductions seemed a bit bland for Wade Wilson's character, didn't they? Thinking this, Murphy shouted, "Cut!"

Then he beckoned, "Downey, Jessica, come here."

Murphy was ready to add a punchline to the scene.

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