Judging by the overwhelmingly positive reaction fans and critics have had to "Deadpool," odds are all involved are perfectly happy with how the surprise blockbuster turned out. Recent conversations about early drafts of the film have revealed that the smash hit actually transformed quite a bit during its 16-year odyssey to the big screen. Leading man Ryan Reynolds discussed some of the changes in the "Deadpool Spoiler Special" episode of "Empire's" film podcast, focusing on the characters that ended up being cut out due to budget constraints.

"We had endless [conversations about other X-Men]," said Reynolds. "Taskmaster was in the script originally, too expensive. We had versions where we wanted Hugh Jackman in there, we wanted all kinds of cameos from different people, but it just becomes a big mess for the studio." It has also been revealed that Taskmaster's film rights reverted from Fox back to Marvel Studios, thus prohibiting his involvement in "Deadpool."

Instead, the film settled on two X-Men: Colossus and the little-known character Negasonic Teenage Warhead. "We went through such hell developing the script and which X-Men we could keep and which we couldn't and it just turned into a nightmare," Reynolds said. "The studio would just say, 'too expensive, too expensive, too expensive' to everyone. So finally we were like well, 'what about Negasonic Teenage Warhead' and they said, 'Negasonic, what?'"

Directed by Tim Miller and starring Reynolds, Morena Baccarin, T.J. Miller, Gina Carano, Ed Skrein and more, "Deadpool" is in theaters now.

(via Indie Wire)