Why Ryan Reynolds Wanted Celine Dion to Do a Song for ‘Deadpool’
Ryan Reynolds transformed Deadpool from a character that only comics fans liked to an international pop culture icon. He accomplished this partly through the amazing songs in the Deadpool movies. During an interview, the director of Deadpool 2 explained why Reynolds asked Celine Dion to record a new song for the Deadpool series.
Ryan Reynolds wanted a Celine Dion-style song for ‘Deadpool 2’
During a 2018 interview with Entertainment Weekly, Deadpool director David Leitch discussed why Dion became part of the pop culture-referencing world of Deadpool. Initially, he wanted to find a power ballad for Deadpool 2 in the vein of Berlin’s “Take My Breath Away” from Top Gun or Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” from Titanic. While power ballads aren’t too prevalent today, Hollywood movies from the 1980s and 1990s often had hugely successful power ballads on their soundtracks that helped promote the films. Leitch found a song called “Ashes” that felt right for Deadpool 2 and then he sought a singer with the chops to perform it.
“I brought it to Ryan Reynolds and we started to riff on it,” the director said. “And he’s like, ‘You know who we should get? We should approach Celine. She’s an incredible singer, she’s amazing, but she’s also someone who works in the sort of subversive Deadpool universe.'”
Leitch said that Reynolds’ idea was similar to other behind-the-scenes Deadpool moments. “It’s a lot of how things work on Deadpool: One of us has an idea, another one brings another idea to it, and then all of a sudden magic happens,” he said, laughing. “So Ryan reached out. We had the song that was going to work for the movie, and then Ryan reached out and said, ‘Celine, would you like to record it?'”
How Celine Dion reacted to the offer of doing a track for a ‘Deadpool’ movie
Dion liked the song and agreed to record it. She understood the tone of the film. As a little icing on the cake, her son was a Deadpool fan — as is everybody under a certain age.
Leitch explained his goals with “Ashes.” “[We wanted it to be] really sincere with Celine’s performance, but then do the classic Deadpool subversion and pull the rug out,” he said. “We felt it was really important that we were involved creatively, so that’s why I really wanted to make time out of my schedule to direct it.”
‘Ashes’ wasn’t 1 of Celine Dion’s biggest songs
While “Ashes” is one of Dion’s best songs, it’s not one of her biggest hits. It didn’t reach the Billboard Hot 100. Instead, it peaked at No. 17 on Billboard’s Bubbling Under Hot 100, which is equivalent to No. 117 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Considering Dion once gave us megahits like “The Power of Love” and “Because You Loved Me,” the performance of “Ashes” was underwhelming at best. However, some of the best pop songs never became hits. For example, The Beatles never even released “Here Comes the Sun” or “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” as singles. Furthermore, “Ashes” is great because it works so well in the over-the-top Deadpool series.
“Ashes” wasn’t a hit but it’s impressive because it manages to be subversive and sincere at the same time.
