20th Century Fox has announced that they’ve decided to move ahead with the X-Men spinoff Deadpool, and have set the film’s release date for February 12, 2016.

Earlier today the studio announced that Deadpool would be hitting theaters in early 2016. Director Tim Miller is set to helm Deadpool, with Ryan Reynolds rumored to reprise his role as the film’s mutant.

There’s nothing official about Reynolds’ involvement yet, but he played the character in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and while that film wasn’t well received, we imagine they may stick with Reynolds for various reasons.

Deadpool, whose real name is Wade Wilson, is a mercenary with loads of mutant abilities. He was given the ability of many mutants, which includes Wolverine’s ability to heal instantly.

The character’s origins in the film are much different than in the comic, so it’ll be interesting to find out where they decide to take the character.

Test footage of Deadpool was released online a while back, and it was fairly well received by fans. The footage featured Deadpool battling some baddies on the street, and it was definitely a unique look at the comic book character.

In case you missed the Deadpool test footage, check out the interesting video below:

Ryan Reynolds recently discussed the leaked footage, explaining that the test footage is actually responsible for helping the movie get on its feet after struggling to get made for years now.

Reynolds said, “The movie has been in a state of limbo for a while. There was such an overpowering reaction to the footage, you sort of feel like, ‘Oh, so we weren’t crazy for our reasons for loving this character, for loving this role.’ It’s interesting to see the power of the Internet. It’s awe-inspiring, actually.”

The actor revealed that social media had a vital role in the film moving forward, saying, “And it’s neat that Twitter and Facebook and Instagram can move mountains when used in the right way.”

There have been rumors that Deadpool was planned to be rated a hard ‘R’ rating, so we look forward to finding out how the studio plans to deal with such a unique film adaptation.

Ryan has always been interested in the character, and we imagine he’s happy to hear that the project is moving forward. It’ll be interesting to find out if he will be starring in Deadpool when it hits theaters February 12, 2016.