Ryan Reynolds has praised Christopher Nolan's "The Odyssey" after it overtook his own "Deadpool & Wolverine" to become the highest-grossing R-rated film of all time, calling Nolan "a singular filmmaker" during interviews at the New York premiere of his new film "Mayday". Reynolds' comments reflect a broader sense of relief in Hollywood, which he described as living through "the friggin' salad days" following the industry's biggest box-office summer since the Covid pandemic, buoyed by hits including "Spider-Man: Brand New Day" alongside Nolan's epic.

"Mayday", an Apple Original Films release co-starring Kenneth Branagh, marks Reynolds' first major film role in over two years and casts him as a US Navy pilot stranded behind enemy lines at the end of the Cold War. In the wide-ranging interview, Reynolds also pushed back on rose-tinted nostalgia for the 1980s popularised by shows like "Stranger Things", pointing to the era's nuclear anxieties, industrial decline and the AIDS crisis, and speculated that future decades may similarly romanticise the Covid era. He additionally teased a possible return as Deadpool in "Avengers: Doomsday", having crashed Marvel's Comic-Con panel earlier this year in costume.