Ryan Reynolds was in London to promote The Proposal last night and in between rom-com patter and general charm, he gave us an update on his eagerly-awaited Deadpool spin-off. There's a double dose of good news for fans of the Marvel mercenary. Reynolds says Deadpool will breach the fourth wall: “Break the fourth wall? Oh yeah, he’s got to. I want to see him break the Great Wall."

Confirming what he recently told HitFix, Reynolds emphasised that he and 20th Century Fox were working to ensure that Deadpool close sticks as closely as possible to the Marvel comic-book: “The studio's working on a script and trying to find a director. The main goal is to make sure it stays close to the source material."

So does Reynolds feel under pressure from fanboys? “I’m one of them. I’ve always been a fan, at least for the last eight or nine years. I feel a bit of validation because I knew going into Wolverine that there’s a huge fanbase for this and I don’t think anyone else did."

SPOILER: One thing the annoyingly charming and funny leading man wouldn't go into was the little matter of that decapitation: “That we won’t speak of." So perhaps they haven't nailed the thorny problem of reattaching his head, unsewing his mouth and generally undoing the entire last act of X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

Still, it's comforting to know that the one name so far attached to the project is a die-hard fanboy, and we're currently basking in beautiful visions of a cross between Blade (without the vampires) and Ferris Bueller's Day Off (the bits where he talks to the audience): please don't burst our bubble.