Ryan Reynolds to reprise Deadpool in Canadian-shot Marvel movie

Canadian actor Ryan Reynolds is reportedly set to return to the West Coast to begin shooting Deadpool for a 2016 release.

Fans might recall Reynolds's last outing as a super hero, the ill-fated Green Lantern film. Heavy on CGI and short on character development, the movie was widely panned by comic book lovers and sent one of DC Comics most popular heroes into hibernation.

This isn't the first time Deadpool has had some screen time. But most fans would rather forget the treatment of the character in X-Men Origins: Wolverine—a movie so troubled it's been written out of X-Men movie continuity.

Reynolds, a charming actor who was born in B.C., has struggled to land a hit the past couple years appearing in the critically derided The Captive and the ghost cop film R.I.P.D.

But the stars may be aligning for Reynolds's return. Deadpool is an almost invincible Canadian-born mercenary who functions as the court jester for the Marvel universe. (Imagine Spider-Man with a potty mouth and a craving for Mexican food and you get the idea). 

A leaked video of Deadpool director Tim Miller's test footage suggests the film will feature motion-captured computer animation to bring the manic assassin to life.  

Warning: clip contains explicit language.

•  On mobile? Watch the leaked video here.

While a digital Deadpool might upset purists, it should help to draw attention to Reynolds's greatest asset: his voice.

Leading man looks aside, some of Reynolds’s best recent performances have been entirely animated. Listens to Reynolds as the speed-obsessed snail in Turbo, or the prehistoric inventor in The Croods, and you'll hear characters that are fast, funny and yet entirely convincing.

Deadpool, a hero with a healing-factor that rivals Wolverine, needs an actor with his own kind of super-charm to make it believable. If the fan reaction to the leaked test footage is any indication, Reynolds may finally have a hit on his hands.