Warning: This story contains spoilers for Deadpool‘s post-credits scene.
After watching the first superhero movie of 2016, you may already be wondering about the future of Deadpool. Has Ryan Reynolds reached an untapped audience for R-rated superhero comedies, or will the Deadpool franchise stop at just one movie? Well, first up:
Yes, the Deadpool sequel is happening
Fox has already greenlit Deadpool 2, which will go ahead unless this movie turns out to be a huge flop. Since Deadpool has a fantastic advertising campaign and a relatively small budget ($50 million, a third of the budget for most superhero movies), success is basically in the bag. Writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick are already onboard, and director Tim Miller is very likely to return as well.
What about that post-credits scene?
Deadpool‘s post-credits scene namechecks Cable for the sequel, a team-up that most fans thought would never make it to the big screen.
For the uninitiated, Cable is the time-traveling son of Cyclops and a clone of Jean Grey, sent to the future and then, uh, sent back to the present day—which at that point was the early ’90s. (As always, X-Men continuity is as linear as a bowl of ramen noodles.)
He’s had a recurring role in various X-Men comics since the late ’80s, but in this context, fans should look back to the Cable & Deadpool series that began in 2004. It’s a cult favorite, and Cable is one of Deadpool’s most popular (platonic) partners.
Like Deadpool, Cable was made famous by writer/artist Rob Liefeld. He’s an archetypal over-the-top ’90s badass: a gigantic cyborg who carries a comically huge gun and loves to wear bulky costumes with lots of pouches. He and Deadpool have a classic odd-couple partnership, with Cable as the hardass action hero and Deadpool as the annoying comic relief.
Deadpool‘s mid-range budget meant that it didn’t include any particularly jaw-dropping action sequences or special effects, but if it does well at the box office, the sequel may get more financial backing. This would be good news for Cable, whose telekinetic powers may be more complicated to film than Deadpool’s martial arts fighting style.
Is X-Force going to show up?
In a recent promotional interview, Ryan Reynolds said that X-Force was his “priority” for the future of Deadpool.
Tonally, X-Force could be the X-Men franchise’s answer to Suicide Squad. The original comic (another Rob Liefeld creation) is a dark, violent X-Men spinoff with Cable as the leader of a team of mutant warriors. “Superhero” is probably too soft a word for these guys, because any X-Force story will inevitably be more action-focused than the more emotional and political narratives of the X-Men movies.
The earlier X-Force lineups include a couple of characters like Sunspot and Warpath who have already appeared in the X-Men movies, leaving room for more crossovers within the franchise. Most of the main characters are kind of obscure, but there are still several who would be awesome to see onscreen. Tabitha “Boom-Boom” Smith would be a fun addition to the X-Men movie universe (and an excellent foil for Deadpool), while Rictor and Shatterstar have a cult following as one of Marvel’s few same-sex superhero couples.
We’d be a little surprised if Deadpool 2 turned out to be a team movie, but if Fox greenlights a threequel, X-Force is surely on the cards.
Photo via Deadpool