Deadpool and Wolverine

Today, we’re talking with Dean Zimmerman, ACE and Shane Reid about editing Deadpool & Wolverine.

Dean’s been on Art of the Cut before to discuss the projects: Free Guy, All the Light We Cannot See and Stranger Things — for which he won an Emmy, was nominated for two more Emmys, and an ACE Eddie. His other work includes The Darkest Minds, Jumper, and Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian. Dean’s been working on the next season of Stranger Things.

Shane Reid was previously on Art of the Cut for his editing of Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire. He also edited the feature, One More Time with Feeling, and is currently cutting the new Saturday Night Live feature film, due out in October of 2024.

Dean and Shane, thank you so much for taking the time to talk about Deadpool and Wolverine. Welcome.

ZIMMERMAN: Happy to be here.

REID: Yeah, thank you for having us.

By the time people hear this, this film could already have made a billion dollars worldwide in about two weeks. Is that just insane? Did you feel that energy when you were editing the film?

ZIMMERMAN: I think the hope was always there. We definitely felt that we had something big and special and unique. And this being my - if you count a little recut I did on Hit Man’s Wife’s Bodyguard - my fourth one with Ryan, so the expectation’s always there. And just being a huge fan of the Deadpool series, at the end of the day, the collaboration between the four of us was one of the most unique and gratifying experiences professionally I’ve ever had. 

The four of us in that editing room - even on set - just making decisions on set together, just our synergy, just how we approached all of it. There was never a bad idea or a wrong answer. The communication, the collaboration, the creative freedom that we all had to express ideas was just something that I’ve always had with Shawn and Ryan, to be perfectly honest.

But with another editor, it was definitely something that was great. All the credit to Shane because when we first chatted, the first thing he said was, “How do you like to work?” And I said, “Well, this is kind of how I like to do it.” And he said, “This is how I like to do it.”

And we couldn’t be more in lockstep right out of the gate. So to create that safe space between us as the editors and the creative force in the cutting room, let us be able to go in stronger with better ideas, bigger ideas, suggestions of what that we needed, what we were hoping and wanting or what we think needs to be redone. It was all received with open arms and open ears.

It definitely wouldn’t have happened without Shane just being all in from the jump.

REID: My first conversations with Dean, I didn’t have any selfish motivations. I just wanted to make a really great film with really great people who cared about it as much as I did; loved the property as much as I did; wanted to do right by Ryan and Shawn as much as I did.

Stepping into a historical relationship that Dean and Shawn have together, it’s not out of my character to say what I said or do what I did. It is who I am.

But I think it was really important for them to feel like they were bringing someone on to be a part of their team who respected the history that they have. That’s a very unique blend of many different things that can be very sensitive and can go one way or the other. We were all really happy that it was just like four brothers mixing it up, laughing, fucking around, having fun, being bold, supporting each other, and being honest with each other. It was the best.

ZIMMERMAN: Sometimes the honesty was not what any of us wanted to hear, but sometimes it was that slap in the face that you need that created the space to say, “Wait a minute. Let’s reevaluate this and re-look at it in a bigger, better way that yielded a different outcome, completely different, which was awesome.”

Shane, you and I last spoke for Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire. You also cut that with another editor. Talk to me about establishing that collaborative vibe with another editor and switching between one person and another person and how you get along with them.

REID: It’s a unique position. To jump onto both of these films was an honor and a privilege. I couldn’t be successful with them if I went in throwing elbows around and puffing my chest and letting my ego get in the way.

It was more about learning from Nathan and Dean and also saying, “Here’s what I do and here’s something that I might bring that’s a little bit different than what you bring.” I got really lucky to get two great films - two great franchises - with really talented filmmakers, but also with exceptionally human editors who allowed me the space to do my thing and became friends and collaborators in the process.

So a lot of it can be on my character and how I came in, but it is also reflective of their characters.

Shane Reid, director Shawn Levy and Dean Zimmerman, ACE.

ZIMMERMAN: Even if we weren’t on the same page, the freedom that we both had to allow ourselves to fail, that’s what makes all the difference in the world, when you can be an idiot and make fun of yourself and get messy as you want in the sandbox.

At the end of the day, that’s what yields the best and most creative outcomes for us. It not only worked, but I think it really elevated the production as well. This is a company we’ve never worked with before.

I haven’t done a Marvel or Disney film yet to have that much creative freedom and support from them as well. It was the recipe to make a perfect cookie.

REID: It’s kind of in the DNA of the film. The film’s about friendship and obviously the story that’s transpired is about these three amigos that are running around making a movie together and having the best time of their lives.

That kind of energy and synergy just trickles down to everybody else. All these films have massive pressures, especially a film like this with so much on the line. But I can’t remember many days that felt dark or like they were breaking us.

It was always about pushing, it was always about collaborating and it was about honesty. The DNA of the film definitely trickled through the post and the production.

Technically, how did you collaborate? Was it choosing alternate scenes that came in or “Here’s a big tent pole scene, I’m gonna do that. Here’s another big tent pole. You do that?”

ZIMMERMAN: It was so organic. As dailies came in: I’m gonna take this, I’m gonna take this. There’s only one scene where Shane came to me because he wanted the legacy reveal of all of our characters: Electra Gambit, and Blade in that Hero’s Hideout. When he read the script, he said, “I would really love to take a first whack of that scene.

I said, “Absolutely man, go for it!” When he put it together - just from an editorial standpoint - I looked at it and I said, “Wow, I would’ve not done it that way, and it’s so much better than I would’ve done it.” Shane took some liberties and it all was perfect and when we showed them, they all freaked out. 

So that cut hasn’t really changed much from his original assembly, which again is a huge testament to how quickly this gentleman got in sync with me and Shawn because it’s taken years for me to get to the point where I know what Shawn’s thinking and how he wants stuff. He just did it so quickly. And I think that’s just a tribute to his talent.

We did have some dark days and the dark days were just from working 18 hours straight ‘cause we did have a very compressed schedule and were under a very tight deadline. You throw two massive strikes into the mix along with an accelerated schedule, and we were given an impossible task that we not only pulled off, but I think - as the world has shown - we succeeded in record-breaking ways.

You reminded me of that Hero’s Hideout scene and I wanted to ask about those big “reveals.” Talk about making that choice of a shot that reveals a character for the first time. Are you thinking about the fans going nuts or are you thinking I just have to make the right cut for the story. Or if I make the right edit, the fans will go nuts anyway. What’s your thought on those reveals?

REID: Those things don’t really factor into when you’re assembling and cutting. You’re just trying to make Shawn and Ryan happy, or I’m trying to make Dean happy. That’s where your first audience is, and yourself. 

By the way, there’s not a scene in this film that both of us didn’t pass off and touch and put our own spin on. That was really a beautiful thing about the collaboration: Dean would take a sequence, try a thing, I’d take a sequence from him, try a thing, and there was never any preciousness about it.

It’s an interesting question about the reveals because - specifically for that scene - I think the reason I really wanted it - and Dean was so generous to let me take a crack at it - was, I loved in Deadpool movies when the action sequence was a dialogue sequence and this one I could just feel that Ryan was just gonna go absolutely nuts.

There was gonna be a rhythmic thing to it that I was more than anything just curious to explore. It wasn’t really even about, “I want the scene that has Gambit or Blade.” It was like, “I just want to test: how do I create a rhythm among all these people?” 

One of my co-partners in my company is Kirk Baxter, who cuts for Fincher. He says that all the time, with Mindhunter, “I love when I get six people in a room and it’s just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom and it’s moving all around around.”

That felt like one of the opportunities I had in this film to do that. So I’m cutting it for myself. But then you have to think about like, “Okay, Blade’s coming out, this is a moment - it’s gotta sort of service some sort of massive fan experience.

I had that in the cut, but if anything really changed throughout the edit, it was in that specific scene. It was how much do we let Blade walk out? How long do we draw this out? Is it enough?

Do we want more? What are gonna be the beats that we’re gonna wanna let the audience really embellish and really love this moment before we insert more dialogue? ‘cause once the dialogue starts, the audience starts paying attention again.

Sometimes you just wanna let them hoot and holler and we could not be more excited about the response it’s gotten because I think we nailed it.

Associate Editor Jennifer Stellema, director Shawn Levy, producer Ryan Reynolds, editor Dean Zimmerman, editor Shane Reid

You’re working blind with that. You do a little bit of test screening. But it’s edited in being faithful to the idea that an audience experience is outside of the experience that you’re creating in the edit, You’re trying to create something that feels organic and rhythmic and natural and clearly that’s not someone walking in slow motion with a big song. 

So it’s a delicate balance, but I think it just works ‘cause the film is just such a fan service and such a love letter that when Blade comes out, that’s what you wanna do. You just wanna let that dude rip the screen up and it’s really fun.

Ryan Reynolds co-wrote, was there also a lot of ad-libbing and how did that affect things?

ZIMMERMAN: Literally on the final mix stage we were auditioning and changing jokes. It is literally the blessing and the curse of any superhero movie with a mask is you can put anything in his mouth. That was something we were chasing constantly.

But what a privilege to be able to do that because all you’re doing is plusing plusing plusing constantly. 

We were on a text chain, there were five or six of us with Ryan, Cole, Craig, our sound designer, and all of us. Shawn and Ryan would be texting at three o’clock, four o’clock in the morning our time in LA but it was their time in New York. There would be 40 alts of Ryan saying, “Try this for this and this.”

Then, “No, I don’t like all of those. Try this one.” We would audition all these things and at the end of it we were saying, “How does someone say, ‘I don’t wanna get another text message from Ryan Reynolds on a joke try?’

Those are the things that I miss the most right now that we have been away from it. We still get text messages from Ryan.”

REID: We’re all on Mint mobile now because he fucked our data plans up by just loading us with content. 

ZIMMERMAN: Yeah. No more unlimited for anyone ever again!

There are a lot of fight scenes in this movie. Can either one of you give me a little bit of advice on cutting a fight scene? Shane?

REID: I got to start the “Wolverine and Deadpool landing in the void fight.” It’s the first fight sequence I’ve ever edited. It’s surprisingly easy to just nail the choreography. I mean it’s so well choreographed by Alex K. and Hugh doing his stunts and the way Shawn directed it and George Richmond, our DP shot it. I mean it was flawless in its production and then it’s just a puzzle piece and you put it together. 

I have no interest in house music or anything with that throbbing kind of beat, but when I’m cutting a fight scene, I blast it and you take all the sound away and you’re just sort of watching the physical cut.

You’re just watching the fists: where they’re going and the punches and the kicks and whatever it is, so you construct it, then after you’ve constructed it, there’s not much really more to do with it. You’re reinventing the wheel on a fight scene. It’s really about the joy of first cutting it then the challenge - with the Void fight - about music.

I put the AC/DC track on it on my first assembly and we loved it. It’s such a fun rock scene and it’s one of the only metal songs in the movie. After the first assembly of it, it just stayed where it was. Dean did the van fight. He should probably speak to that.

Talk about just the approach to that fight. Do you do a select reel? ‘cause a lot of fights, the usable pieces are very short, right?

ZIMMERMAN: Yes. Lots of pieces. I kind of equate fight sequences to paint by numbers. It’s all choreographed within an inch of its life. The minivan fight had to be choreographed within an inch of its life because you’re in a very confined space. He couldn’t use his katanas because there’s just no room to pull ’em out. I cut it exactly how the script designated, but I worked very closely with Alex and our second unit team.

That was the one thing that is encouraged - especially by Shawn and Ryan. We would go to set a lot on the second unit days when they were shooting all this choreo and kind of say, “Can we get this? Can we get this?” There was a collaboration of the three of us on set.

The beginning bone fight in the woods as well. The opening sequence, we spent two weeks on second unit shooting all that choreo and I actually had a remote system on set in a trailer and I would take the video tap from set, cut it in live right then and there after they finished shooting that setup and say, “It’s not good enough” or “it is good enough” or “could do this and this?”

We worked with Alex and George and thank God the production allowed us to do it all. It allowed us to get everything perfect so that when we put it together, it was exactly how Ryan and Shawn wanted it. Same with the van fight.

REID: Yeah, we had really good stuntvis videos that Alex would create and send to Shawn or Ryan and they would make notes on it. So that was always like the gospel because we were so in love with it that we should make it work like the stunts and then if we needed any adjustments we let them know.

ZIMMERMAN: We precut all the stuntvis. During their stunt rehearsals they would record them. They would slap together a little edit. We would get the footage. We would then re-edit it. We would drop in some music and that’s kind of how it worked.

It was all just a very integrated editorial. We all had one common goal, which was to make and shoot efficiently and effectively all the material that we needed to get The Big One that we did. Another huge collaboration was the legacy fight at the Aman Arena. That one was a bear. They wanted it big and epic and showy and showcasing all our legacies in the way that they deserved.

Shane and I would take turns bouncing out to that set and grabbing pieces and working with everyone and having huge production meetings at the end of the night with George and his stunt team and all the guys that were shooting it and saying, “Here’s where the edit stands now.

This is what we think we we need. What do you think?” It was just this big collaboration of “what can we get to make it even better?” We were constantly saying to George, “How do we make this more bitching? What else can you come up with?

What crazy shit can you do that you haven’t done before that is synonymous with these characters?” That’s where one of the ideas of Shane grabbing the boomerang and Blades throwing this boomerang blade all around that was not scripted. That came up in a meeting. This is an iconic piece of choreo that is synonymous with Blade.

REID: We had such a Yes team. Shawn only has a certain amount of days that he’s got Ryan and he’s  pumping, George is picking up a lot of extra materials that we might need. ~

But Shawn has such a long-lasting trust with Dean that Dean is definitely the person who is the advocate for the things that Shawn needs when Shawn’s out doing the things that he has to do, so Dean would take a lot of that over and it was all super collaborative. 

I think we kept that unit on that location for like two more weeks than they were even supposed to. That was a first assembly that we all went, yeah, this is 10% of what it needs to be. Everyone’s gotta get on deck and everyone’s gotta figure it out and everyone’s gotta crank.

Then we OVER-did it! we had a cut at one point where we said, “All right guys! Jesus Christ, it’s a billion people exploding! I think I’d cut 12 different explosions in slow motion, so we thought, “Okay, now we can pull it back.” It was almost like: “Throw more into the fire and then we can shape it.” Whereas before we were really trying to make anything work, and that wasn’t quite enough.

ZIMMERMAN: And we got support not only production, but from the studio side: “If you can do it and you can afford it? Kick ass!” A big huge shout out to Mary McLaglen. She is so incredible at her job. She was our executive producer and unit production manager - and her brother as well, Josh McLaughlin, affectionately known as Zulu on set - They were just ambassadors of “how can we make this better? And let us give you the resources to do that.”

REID: She’s a filmmaker’s producer. Hundred percent.

ZIMMERMAN: It was, it was always with an eye to: do we really need this? Because sometimes it’s really easy to sit in your dark cutting room and say, “Can you go get that?” and not realize what it actually entails to go get that.

You mentioned that opening credit sequence with the dancing. I’ve spoken with both of you about cutting with music or without music. I’m assuming that you had to have the music chosen ahead of time for that.

ZIMMERMAN: Well, we didn’t actually.

REID: Originally, it was Kenny Loggins, The Gambler.

ZIMMERMAN: We shot all this choreo, we cut it to that song and we all watched it and we said, “Nope! Too slow! Doesn’t work.” It was a great concept. Shane and I really blended the two of us together. He took it and said, “I’m gonna flip it up on its ear.”

REID: I started it with Sharp Dressed Man by ZZ Top. There was this idea that you were following bones. Bones were giving you each credit and then you’d follow that bone and everything was really glued together.

That idea had been so inherent in the production and had been around for so long that it was hard to break away from that. One of the things that Ryan and I really connected on, why he brought me into this, was to just be someone to shake it up.

I just don’t have rules, and neither does Dean. When I started working on this sequence, I thought, “Who fucking cares about the bone going into that thing?” And one night I just mixed it all up.

I think we were all thinking, “Just be free from it.” This thing actually wasn’t working. We were kind of holding onto it. Ryan and Shawn were thinking, “This is a little Guardians of the Galaxy, with the tone of music.

It doesn’t feel like Deadpool. We need to hit the audience with: “This is the film you’re about to see.” Then it started to get into pop music. We had Britney going for a while. I think it came down to an NSYNC versus Backstreet Boys.

So did you have to re-shoot the dancing?

ZIMMERMAN: We did. The dancing came later and there was actually a pitch by Method - who did our titles. They came in with a pitch of a CGI Deadpool dancing to this NSYNC song. Shawn and Ryan just completely fell in love with it. So we got a dancer, put him in that suit and shot him. It was two days in post. Fast.

REID: It was about: how do we make everyone have the best time right now? This is the tone-setter. This is the movie you’re in for. We’re gonna give you the whole damn NSYNC song because you love it and we’re just going to keep stacking on the violence and the dancing and the joy to create probably one of the best opening credit sequences ever.

The concept of using the bones with credits on ’em to kill everybody was  in the script, but how do you keep upping the level of a Deadpool credit sequence, because they’ve obviously become quite notorious.

So once that song was locked in, it was Dean’s and my responsibility to edit this thing rhythmically to service this song. How do we just have fun with it and hit things on the beat? It was just a microcosm of what the film is, which is that it can handle and absorb so many ideas.

Throw this at it! Throw that at it! Put this in there! Throw that! It is just unbelievable how much you can stockpile. Then it’s about: are you still on the rails? I think what’s so impressive about the film is how it ebbs and flows from like these really human moments to these broad, gigantic sequences that are full of explosive laughter.

Was that the biggest challenge? The jumps in tone? 

ZIMMERMAN: Exactly. That’s where Hugh [Jackman] brings such a gravitas with performance - poignant performance. What he was going through personally, he just channeled and put it into this character: the visceral anger and torment that he had I think was a bit personal, but also the character. I think had he not been going through some of the stuff he was going through personally, I don’t think would’ve translated as well.

I don’t think the scenes would’ve worked as well. 

This movie wasn’t supposed to be born. It happened because of Hugh. The  big story is: I remember sitting in the Hamptons, cutting “This is Where I Leave You” and Shawn said, “I have to go do a Zoom with Marvel because we can’t crack Deadpool. 

We’re gonna pass on it. We need to do it later. The script is is just not coming together,” but that morning Hugh called Ryan and said, “I wanna put the suit back on. I’ll do it for you if you’re willing to have me. I’m happy to do it.” Two hours later this Zoom call - which was going to be about: “We’re out.” - instead was: “Hey guys, what if we do this with Hugh Jackman as Wolverine?” All of a sudden it was like a fuse on a rocket and it just started firing.

Two weeks later the script was written, it happened all so quickly. We were locked in and in lock step on everything, ‘cause we had to be. We literally had no time. Our post schedule is 23 weeks with almost 2000 visual effects shots.

It’s a tribute to us cutting very quickly and being on top of everything every second. There wasn’t a day that Shawn didn’t shoot Monday and saw a cut of that shoot Tuesday morning because we were striking sets and building sets so quickly  because we were on the gas 24/7. 

Then we had to shut down. It was already an impossible schedule, then the strikes hit and we didn’t know when we were going to get back. We had some downtime, then we came back and had to hit the ground running again.

REID: I remember, it was like: “If we are not starting on this date” - and we were like down to the DAY - Everyone said, “That’s impossible! But production just said, “I know, but we gotta do it.” That’s just how the whole production was.

Dean Zimmerman, ACE and a random editing fan.

ZIMMERMAN: The team rallied around each other. It was the first time ever that production and post-production literally worked as one unit: the communication that we had with production and the communication production I had with us. We did what we needed to do and it couldn’t have been better and it needed to be at that level to get it done. It also helps when you’ve worked with all these people before.

I’ve worked with all these people forever. I’ve known them since the first Night a the Museum in 2006. We have such years of history that we all know what our breaking points are and and where the stress points are and how do we alleviate and make those stress points not break? And we were bending everything to the point.

Ryan is always the engine. This is a guy who never goes to his trailer. If he’s not in the scene he is 100% giving the perfect performance off-camera for all the other actors. He’s there in every meeting. He’s there in every decision that’s being made. This guy never sleeps and he’s so beautiful.

REID: You don’t get to where Ryan is in life without being someone who’s just constantly productive. We saw Ryan in very stressful moments. Never once was he aggressive with people or talked down to anybody or didn’t make someone feel valued.

He was like the best football quarterback captain that you could have. He just said, “Come on guys” - even if it was like, “I don’t give a fuck. Just get up and do it!” - he just had a drive to him that was like true leadership quality despite the hours, despite whatever you gotta do to get it done, despite the weekends. We thought, “Alright, we’re a part of this team and we’re all on board.

We gotta do what we gotta do.”

You mentioned downtime during the strikes, but was it really downtime? Did it help you in any way to have the strikes happen?

ZIMMERMAN: The writer’s strike happened early. We were still able to shoot. Once the actors went on strike, we had to shut down.

But did you have to shut down the edit suites?

ZIMMERMAN: No. We had about half the movie shot and cut when the actors went on strike and we had to stop. So we went back to New York, got in the cutting room and worked for about five weeks cutting the material that we had.

We showed Marvel and Kevin and Lou and Wendy. They all loved it. But what came out of that was a lot of great ideas of what we still had left to shoot that we could change. So once the writer’s strike finished, we were rewriting some stuff.

Once we got back into shooting again, this is where sets were being torn down and built so quickly because we were changing while we were shooting because we had no choice. We had all these ideas of how to plus the movie and where we could make it better.

Also some stuff that we shot we asked if we could go back and pick up this line or that thing so that we could enhance or make this scene better. So that was invaluable and such a blessing to have that time.

REID: The big one too that I want to add to what Dean’s saying is the example of the “Search for Wolverine” montage. We had three vignettes in the script and we put it together, and - at that time that we were cutting in New York - Dean and I felt like we could add more and make it a more fun montage.

Ryan was of the mindset that the movie started when you got to Hugh and that the audience was just gonna be really wanting that. But Dean and I thought that the search for Wolverine was  also part of “Hugh.”

That was the tease to Hugh. Dean and I had a lot of conviction and we went to Shawn and Ryan and they were good collaborative partners, so we talked to our storyboard artist. Shawn wanted him to pitch him 10 deep-cut Wolverine ideas that were total fan service - “pull these from comics.”

So we created the brown and tan, the Wolverine on the cross with the pink skulls…

ZIMMERMAN: Old Man Logan…

REID: …That gave us Hulk too, because Hulk was in a comic with Brown and Tan. So we would build the edit with storyboards. We’d lay it down as sort of proof-of-concept, like, “Okay, this is worth it.” We all felt like it was worth it.

So we went back to Mary McLaglen and gave them a list of pickup shoots that we’d like to do and we were able to fold that into the production. That scene happened because we had time from the strikes. We would’ve never had the time to do that otherwise.

So many things elevated. The VFX got a big head start on the Void fight because we had most of that done, so we squeezed as much as we could out of it.

ZIMMERMAN: We cut for about five weeks, then we had eight weeks off until both strikes ended and we could get back into shooting.

Editor Shane Reid, on set with a bunch of Deadpools

Did that time off help you? The actual space away?

ZIMMERMAN: Time away for sure. It gives you perspective on a whole bunch of stuff. We had a very clear blueprint at that point. We all thought, “Maybe we should always do this.” You shoot half of it. You cut it for a couple weeks.

Get some space. Let the crew take a couple weeks off or a month, and you bring them back and finish strong, ‘cause everyone gets super tired. The days are super long and taxing and production’s tough.

You’re not the first ones to say that. There’ve been other cases like Tom Cruise breaking his ankle on Mission: Impossible or Harrison Ford getting injured on Star Wars, or COVID, where you’re shut down for six weeks in the middle of production.

ZIMMERMAN: You can go from a 30,000 foot view down to a thousand feet, really get it into a spot and then jump back out again and think, “How do we wanna finish this? Is there stuff we’re missing? Did we shoot stuff that we didn’t need or with stuff that we shot, can we enhance it in any way?”

There was no negative to it. There was only additive. We should just do this from now on: take a few weeks off, even if it’s just two or three, just to have that moment to pause, give everyone a little break and get some perspective and be able to really reassess what else we need to get and make sure we’re all traveling down the same road that we want to go down.

I think filming started May, 2023. How far ahead of production did you arrive? You mentioned stunts. Were you cutting stuntvis and previs during that time?

ZIMMERMAN:  I jumped on about three weeks early, and attended all the production meetings - which is something that a lot of editors don’t ever get to do. It really is something that I value and I think I add a lot of value, and Shawn, I think, recognizes that. He likes to have me out there and likes to have me take care of stuff so he doesn’t have to.

Being a director, there’s so much on his plate, so anything I can take off, I’m happy to: cutting previs and cutting storyboards, redoing storyboards, asking for new boards. When we started shooting, Shane was still on Ghostbusters, then he came about three weeks in.

REID: It was about three weeks in, then I went back to Ghostbusters during the break.

I was going to ask how you edit two gigantic blockbuster movies that release within a few months of each other?

REID: You go into a comatose state and you survive…

ZIMMERMAN: Starting January of this year we also started shooting Strangers Things season five. I’m cutting all the episodes so I was doing both since January.

How much research did you do into the Marvel universe? You’ve got all these fan service things, these big throwback moments to other characters and the universe itself. Were you watching the movies again?

REID: I’m not a huge comic book guy…

ZIMMERMAN: …Neither am I…

Director Shawn Levy, Blake Lively, editor Shane Reid, Ryan Reynolds

REID: …so I got the script and I had no idea. No one told me anything. I was isolated in London. I got the script and all the names of the characters were coded. There was Lemon and Gatsby and I thought, “Who the fuck is Lemon?” I had a Rolodex of Marvel names, and I was thinking, “These cameos are not that great. I’m a little bit concerned.” Then Dean told me that the names are coded. “Blade is this. Gambit’s this.”

ZIMMERMAN: That was only after I had the exact same experience when I read the script! Some of the names were “11” and “Jonathan Byers” and “Will Byers” - these Stranger Things coded names. I thought, “Is Shawn trying to combine Stranger Things with Deadpool?” I called him and he says, “Those are the code names for all the legacy characters.” I told him, “You need to send out a legacy list of code names.”

REID: Yeah. We need to know what’s going on! That was the great thing about being surrounded by wonderful artists and Marvel who know all the details. This film was bringing back characters that they knew would sort of hit all these different areas. I remember upon reading it the first time I thought, “I don’t know who the hell any of these people are.”

ZIMMERMAN: I don’t pretend to be any kind of comic book nerd. The beauty of Marvel is that they are all of that and then some! That’s where I relied on them mostly for any kind of knowledge base. I always cut performance and for pace and for maximum enjoyment.

REID: Totally. 

ZIMMERMAN: And laughs, but also poignancy and all that kind of stuff and emotion. So I let Marvel deal with that. That was the beauty of having this team: any questions we had were immediately answered and then it then kind of would inform how we would do other things like writing jokes, having Ryan pitch jokes and stuff. I didn’t do much preparation because my preparation is always just cut the best performance and cut the best of every scene.

So any preparation was: I watched every single Marvel movie. That was one of the things that I did every night.

I would just throw on a new one and watch it. It wasn’t trying to pick up anything, it was just trying to understand the universe that we were heading into. The thing with the montages is that a lot of them were based off of comic book covers. So that was the inspiration.

REID: It’s interesting that you asked about preparation though, because I actually had a little different situation than Dean. I know Wolverine and I’m a fan of the movies, but in preparation, I think I only watched Deadpool movies.

I knew that it would be a movie about both of these characters, but really what I thought was: I have to prepare myself to walk into a Deadpool movie and a Deadpool movie is gonna comment on all these things in a Deadpool-ey kind of way.

So even with the montage, you’re thinking: “Here’s this iconic sacrificial Wolverine on a cross, but what’s Deadpool gonna do? He’s just gonna make fun of him and turn around and walk away.” I embedded myself so much in watching the Deadpool movies with my kids over and over again.

I watched all the commentaries and just tried to glean any little insight into something that I might have missed or things that they trial and errored.

I still think that’s one of the successful things that the movie is. We’re always cutting Wolverine to be in a movie that he doesn’t know he’s in, which allows you to have Deadpool talk to the audience in the movie. He’s in on the joke, but Wolverine’s only responding to the information that he’s receiving. So you can cut it very natural and real.

And Dean did the fire pit and the diner. They were these big emotional anchor scenes because he’s a really talented editor who understands that you’re just cutting THAT performance. And you could see that Wolverine is in this real movie, he’s a character that’s living this out and Deadpool’s just doing what Deadpool does and his mind is like a chewed up bagel, absorbing everything around him. The preparation of it was just: How do I arm myself with all the Deadpool tools to go in there and make this the best Deadpool movie?

We’re at the end of our time. I wanted to ask - to get back to that tonal question - and you kind of led into it, Shane - that there were these moments with real emotional weight to them and really comical moments. What kind of work did you do to get between them - those tonal shifts? How did those have to happen editorially?

REID: It’s a little trial and error. You’d have these beacon points - these emotional hits that you’d sort of work toward or work backward from. Sometimes you couldn’t really know how to juggle that kind of tone without constantly massaging it and feeling it out and getting rid of some scenes around it - tightening some endings.

A lot of it’s just creating commas instead of periods. So we’d have scenes that you’d kind of want to keep going and then we’d have something that would kind of end the scene. When Dean and I were building specific scenes to show Shawn, they were great. “This all works.”

But when you put it together it was like, “We gotta really ride this thing out. It’s slowing down here.” There’s no real direct answer. It’s just put it in front of an audience. Keep putting it in front of an audience. Keep judging it. Keep asking yourself questions. Keep trying things. Eventually you realize…

… let it evolve and know that it’s a process.

REID: This is a film that should have caused so much whiplash.

ZIMMERMAN: That’s where Shane and I would really shine. How do we not get whiplash? When we watched the assembly together - when we started connecting scenes - we would both sit there and say, “Ooh! That didn’t work. How do we fix that?”

We would come up with ideas. Nothing is precious. There are a lot of directors out there where it’s: “What’s on the page needs to be in the film.” With big comedies like this, that’s a death sentence. You can’t do that.

You have to be able to have the ebb and flow and be able to kill some babies for the greater good. There were some jokes that got cut because they were dis-servicing transitions and giving you those kind of moments where things didn’t work.

Where we watch it now, it all just flows as a natural kind of progression. With trial and error, you put it in front of an audience. We would show scenes to our assistants. God bless all the assistants out there. We literally couldn’t do it without them.

Dean Zimmerman, Jennifer Stellema, and Shane Reid

Shout-out to the assistant editors!

ZIMMERMAN: Jennifer Stellema [who gets an Associate Editor credit] is hands-down, single-handedly responsible for getting Deadpool Wolverine into theaters all over the world. She’s a beast. The work that she put in.

She’s the best I’ve ever worked with. Just a monster. She’s the most trustworthy and solid, dependable person that I’ve ever had an experience with. I would love to be able to work with her on every single movie.

REID: She an absolutely dedicated, creative partner.

ZIMMERMAN: She lives the job, but also lives for making everyone look great. And knowledge-wise, she came up the way I did: in film. So she has this knowledgebase that a lot of the younger generation now doesn’t have about the processes, which you still need to kind of know. That was invaluable. If we did not have her, we would’ve definitely not made this schedule. 

REID: No, for sure. So thank you, thank you. Thank you Jen.

That’s a great place to end this gentleman. Dean and Shane, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it.

ZIMMERMAN: Thank you, Steve. Really appreciate it. It’s always fun to chat with you. And by the way, congratulations on the book.

Oh, thanks.

ZIMMERMAN: Amazing. That is definitely a labor of love. Congratulations, because I know it’s well received and I look forward to reading it for sure.

Thank you.