WILD, PRISTINE PARADISE
Reynolds reaffirms B.C. roots with documentary
Ryan Reynolds is thrilled he can take his two young kids to see his new movie. Unlike his Deadpool work, the new Imax documentary Great Bear Rainforest is the perfect project to share with his two- and four-year-old daughters.
Speaking from his home in New York City, Reynolds says he has seen a non-Imax version but is excited to see it in the big format with his family. Great Bear Rainforest hits Imax theatres on Feb. 15.
“I am most excited to take my kids,” said Reynolds before cracking a joke, in true Reynolds style. “They’re going to hate the narrator, but they are going to love what they see.”
The Ian McAllister-directed film takes viewers to the remote area on the northwest coast of B.C. and shows off pristine landscapes and unique wildlife — such as the cool and rare spirit bear, and swimming coastal wolves — of the 6.4 millionhectare Great Bear Rainforest. Part of the largest coastal temperate rainforest in the world, it’s stewarded by local First Nations, also highlighted in the film.
“I hope it remains as untouched as possible. I don’t think human beings can be trusted with having free rein of that area,” said Reynolds. “I don’t really think it is our God-given right to experience everything the planet has to offer because we have abused that privilege in so many instances and some things I think can be exempt from becoming a catalyst for our amusement, and I think the Great Bear Rainforest is one of those.
“The place just seems so wild and so pristine and so stunning. The more untouched it remains the better, as far as I am concerned.”
Now one of Hollywood’s top boxoffice earners — the Deadpool movies have made almost $2 billion to date — Reynolds said his early life in Vancouver wasn’t much different than that of a lot of other MEC membership-toting kids.
A graduate of Kitsilano secondary school, Reynolds said he grew up with a father who loved the Stein Valley and hiking The Lions on the North Shore.
He remembers the fight for the preservation of the Clayoquot Sound in the early 1990s, and he credits the TREK outdoor recreation program at Prince of Wales secondary school, which he attended in Grade 10, as influencing his view of his surroundings.
“That really opened my eyes to a world I had no idea that was just hidden in plain sight right in front of me, going on in British Columbia,” Reynolds said of the program. “That’s where I really became passionate about it and fell in love with it.”
When Reynolds is in Vancouver working — the Deadpool movies were shot here — he visits the North Shore for some time in the woods he enjoyed as a teenager.
“That, to me, is my ideal version of heaven,” said Reynolds. “It is when you move away that you really realize what you are missing. More than anything I find I just long for it all the time. I’m lucky to shoot the Deadpool movies in Vancouver, so I get to take my kids out and experience as much of British Columbia as possible.
“British Columbia has so much to offer — I think you can live 40 or 50 lifetimes and never experience even a tenth of it. Now that I have kids that belief and feeling is reinforced. I just really want to make sure they get some of the experiences that I was lucky enough to have as a kid.”
Based in New York City, Reynolds’ family travels a lot due to his and wife Blake Lively ’s acting jobs and Reynolds’ investment in Aviation American Gin. He admits the schedule leaves him feeling that New York is just a regular stop off. He considers the West Coast home and uses the weather app on his phone to keep in touch with B.C.
“I look at it longingly and I think strangely that then I am still connected to my home a little more when I know what the weather is like there,” said Reynolds.
Reynolds has the new Netflix movie 6 Underground coming out, is Detective Pikachu in Pokémon Detective Pikachu and is back for The Croods 2, among other upcoming projects.
Reynolds’s high profile and hometown-boy vibe made him a great choice to narrate Great Bear Rainforest. And joining the project was an easy decision.
“I’m a big fan of the Great Bear Rainforest and I’m a big fan of Imax, so it seemed like a match made in heaven, so I said yes right away,” said Reynolds.
Having Reynolds attached is a great way to get butts in theatre seats, but the subject matter and Imax format are truly the stars.
With that large-frame quality comes a lot more work than regular filmmaking — about three years worth of work, to be exact.
“Making it was a huge challenge,” said McAllister. “Unlike television or even cinema there are just a lot of very unique methods and equipment and techniques that are very exclusive to the giant screen.
“Everything I have learned about making films and making documentaries really had to be parked at the door,” added the awardwinning nature photographer, cinematographer and author.
“A very different approach had to be incorporated into to everything we did for this film. One of the biggest challenges is we couldn’t use a single second of footage that we’ve been producing over the last almost 30 years. Everything had to be shot specifically for this film.”
The crew spent 400 days at sea filming. They travelled 7,000 nautical miles, or 13,000 kilometres, and shot 7,300 metres of 70-mm film.
While the Great Bear Rainforest has some protections in place, experts say more guarantees are needed to protect it. Films like this are paramount in educating the public.
“Being able to show people what this place looks like and how culturally and ecologically rich this area is, we hope to inspire change and hope to inspire governments and industry to behave differently,” said McAllister, who went to the rainforest 30 years ago on a weeklong expedition and ended up staying there. He lives in the Heiltsuk territory, near Bella Bella, with his family.
“I have devoted my life to exploring the area and learn as much as I can about it,” he said. The more you delve into these natural cycles the more you realize how little you know and it just opens up these entire new worlds of conservation and research opportunities.
“The more you go into any of these areas, whether it is underwater or in the rainforest or up a salmon river, there are many more lifetimes of learning and being inspired by the place. It just contains everything that has been lost south of the Great Bear Rainforest due to human impact. It’s still there. I can’t imagine ever not being excited about and living there and working for its protection.”
Recently, Reynolds was in China promoting a much-censored and renamed Deadpool 2. There, it’s titled Deadpool 2: I Love My Family.
He confirmed in this interview that he was working on Deadpool 3, but was interrupted — Reynolds called the person a “digital bouncer” after the interruption and slight scolding — and ended specific Deadpool talk, so there’s no confirmation on whether the franchise will return to shoot in Vancouver. There were rumours that Atlanta would get the third instalment. But before being “silenced,” Reynolds said this:
“For starters it is a huge privilege to have some effect on where we shoot the movies and I don’t take that for granted at all and the kind of jobs and economy that surround movies of that nature and that size I love bringing it home to British Columbia. I feel pretty crappy, though, about the inconvenience that is sometimes posed with traffic and that sort of stuff, but I hope, overall, it is something Vancouver is proud of. It’s obviously something I am immensely proud of and I hope I get to shoot every single one of those movies in the Lower Mainland.”
If Deadpool 3 does return, we know from the past that the sets will be locked down like a Robert Mueller investigation.
The only recent thing we have heard about the Merc With a Mouth film is what Reynolds said on that China junket — that they were “looking to go in a completely different direction,” adding that “often, they reboot or change a character maybe, like, four movies too late.”
Does that mean a kinder, gentler Deadpool? Please Ryan, no! Your kids can go see the Great Bear Rainforest movie or watch The Croods again. Leave that boring stuff to the Avengers.