Deadpool screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick are still waiting to get the green light from 20th Century Fox, even though they have Ryan Reynolds attached to star and a $50 million budget that is significantly lower than most of their movies. Rhett Reese revealed in a recent interview that the test footage shot last year was great, but that they still have to convince Marvel to make an R-rated superhero movie.

"We have a phenomenal director in Tim Miller, who did about a 3-minute test for Fox, and Ryan came in to do the mo-cap for it and the voice. And it's like the greatest three minutes ever. I look at the three minutes and I'm like, 'That's the movie, and it has to get made.' I think the biggest hurdle right now is convincing the-powers-that-be that it's okay to have a hard-R rated movie within the Marvel Universe."

Paul Wernick compared Deadpool to Iron Man's Tony Stark, a character unlike any other in the Marvel universe.

"Iron Man was like that when it came out. Tony Stark and the hard drinking, fast-talking billionaire was very different from all the other Marvel characters. And look what it became. And we feel that way about Deadpool."

The writers are also dealing with an unexplained leak of their screenplay, although Rhett Reese revealed that fans seemed to enjoy their take on the character.

"The script leaked online in some bizarre way that we haven't figured out, so it's very easily findable out there. It's pretty much you go on Google and type in "Deadpool script" and you'll find it. Not to say people should be doing that because it certainly wasn't something we anticipated or enjoyed in the moment, but the Deadpool fans who found it think that it's right in the wheelhouse of what a Deadpool movie should be. And so again, we're just fighting that uphill battle to convince people, and be positive."

Back in 2009 the writers were hired to tackle the script for a Venom spin-off, giving the popular Spider-Man villain his own stand alone movie. Paul Wernick confirmed that they did turn in a script years ago, but they are no longer involved.

"We did. A long time ago, and it likely will not become a movie in that form. Too many things have happened in between now and then and different people have been involved, and it's just likely not to happen in the form that we wrote it, unfortunately."

When asked to describe the tone of their Venom story, Rhett Reese said it was a darker take.

"[It was a] realistic, grounded, a little more dark take on the character. Eddie Brock was a conflicted character, and so I don't think it could've been Peter Parker."

Paul Wernick expanded on that, revealing that was some soul searching involved in their script as well.

"Yeah it was definitely kind of dark and soul search-y. We love it and we're proud of it. Imagine a symbiote traveling across a city at some point in the movie, jumping from body to body as it goes, and each person that it inhabits ends up becoming really violent and striking someone else and then it jumps to the next person. There was a really cool sequence like that in there."

Last March, we reported that Venom was revived, with Josh Trank (Chronicle) signing on to direct. That report also revealed that Sony was seeking new writers for the project.