Ryan Reynolds Is Working On A New Marvel Movie — But Don’t Expect Deadpool 4
The Merc with a Mouth is becoming a team player.
While Deadpool & Wolverine debunked fears that Deadpool’s best years were behind him, the future for Ryan Reynolds’ iconic character hasn’t been straightforward since. There have been rumblings and theories, but there’s no telling when Deadpool will pop up next. Reynolds seemed to tease that his katana-swinging anti-hero would play a role in Marvel’s upcoming Avengers film, Doomsday, and he’s also, according to some insiders, quietly at work on a treatment for a new Deadpool-centric film. Whatever form his next outing takes, however, he’ll be taking a back seat.
Reynolds confirmed as much in an appearance on Today, echoing prior reports in his own words. “I have some stuff kind of written,” the actor revealed, “but I don’t think I am ever going to center [Deadpool] again.”
That instinct aligns with much of what Reynolds has already said about Deadpool. The actor sees his foul-mouthed mercenary as a perpetual “outsider,” and as he explained to The Hollywood Reporter in 2024, folding him into a group like the Avengers or the X-Men would signal “the end of his journey.” His third film brought him close to that end without crossing the line, but with both the Avengers and the X-Men approaching a new era, it might finally be time for Deadpool to pick a side and step out of the spotlight.
Deadpool is “great in a group,” and his next outing could put him with one of X-Men’s most beloved.
What may sound bittersweet could actually be the best thing for Deadpool. “He is a supporting character,” Reynolds told Today’s Willie Geist. “He is a guy who is great in a group.”
He’s not wrong, and there’s one particular group that fans are hoping he could end up joining. Though the X-Force tried and failed to come together in Deadpool 2 — all but three members perished in their first mission — it’s a team that’s far too valuable to waste. Positioned as the happy-ish medium between Charles Xavier’s X-Men and Magneto’s Brotherhood of Mutants, the X-Force is a force for change that typically does whatever it takes (including bending the law) to defend the world. The team is typically led by no-nonsense mutants like Cable or Domino, with members comprised of Xavier’s former students and outcasts like the New Mutants. Deadpool is a frequent face on the line-up, and as Reynolds says, he functions best there as a supporting player.
Getting Deadpool to join the X-Force might be easier said than done, but Marvel is already rebooting the X-Men within its cinematic universe, which makes for the perfect blank slate for mutantkind. We could see the X-Men’s edgier counterpart in the MCU eventually, and it could be the perfect home for a more evolved version of Deadpool. If not, it’d still be interesting to see where the vigilante ends up next — and with whom.
