It has been almost a year since Fox unleashed “Deadpool” on the public. $783 million worldwide and multiple award nominations later, we are now talking about how “Deadpool” has an outside shot at crashing this year’s Oscars. Deadline recently interviewed “Deadpool” writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick who discussed their shock at how well the film was received, as well as the future of the Marvel superhero.
With the huge box office of the first film, Fox wasted no time announcing a sequel. The writers have been working on the script and are almost ready to film. “We’re pushing forward very hard. I think by every account we will shoot it this year, and we’re on our multiple draft now. It’s taken different twists and turns, but it’s really coalescing, and we’re very, very excited,” said Reese. David Leitch was recently announced as taking over directing duties after Tim Miller left, or perhaps was pushed off, the sequel.
Even with the change at the helm, everyone involved still seems very confident at what the sequel can offer. “We’re a little nervous, because now we feel like we have to live up to the first movie, but at the same time, we have to have faith, and we have an extreme passion still, and as long as we have passion still, and it’s not a mercenary, venal play, which we don’t think this is, I think we’ll be in good shape,” Reese continued.
With X-Men character Cable all but confirmed for the sequel and Colossus featured heavily in the first film, fans are anxious to see if Fox plans on tying Deadpool in with the rest of their X-Men universe. But Reese says it’s all about making sure the tone works.
“It hasn’t been planned yet, but I don’t think it would be too hard to drop Deadpool into another movie. We’re used to watching straight man protagonists who are surrounded by comic relief sidekicks; what we weren’t sure would work was if you could take a movie and make the lunatic, crazy person the protagonist, and surround him with more sane, normal people,” he explained. “That was our goal when we introduced the X-Men into Deadpool’s world, so we put Colossus and Negasonic Teenage Warhead in there, and they’re clearly much more serious characters; in particular, Colossus, who’s a bit of a square. He’s very un-ironic; to take him and drop him as a foil opposite Deadpool, who’s the crazy unreliable narrator at the center of your story, it really was an experiment, and we think it worked. There was enough sanity surrounding Deadpool’s insanity that it balanced pretty nicely. I think you could probably take Deadpool the way they did with Spider-Man in ‘Civil War’ and drop him into a serious movie and it might work, but only time will tell.”
It’s fairly obvious that with the success of the first film and the anticipated success of the sequel, Fox will use the character in every possible way. A film based on “X-Force” has been rumored, which would focus on Deadpool and a covert team of mutants who tend to be more lethal than the X-Men. There’s also Deadpool himself Ryan Reynolds who’s been quite vocal about teaming up with Hugh Jackman as Wolverine. It’ll be interesting to see what the future holds.
“Deadpool 2” should be released sometime in 2018.
