'Deadpool 2' Is Definitely Happening, Probably
The first movie hasn't been released yet and 20th Century Fox might have confirmed a follow-up.
Making a hard R-rated Marvel-related movie with a foul-mouthed C-list superhero was seen as a bit of a gamble, and yet Deadpool arrives in theaters this Friday. But thanks to some grass roots fan-centric marketing, the fourth wall-breaking underdog is projected to win the box office this weekend, and now comes some other good news for fans of the Merc With a Mouth: Studio 20th Century Fox is so confident in their risky move that a sequel is already in the works.
Per The Hollywood Reporter, Deadpool screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick have been tapped to return for the proposed sequel. The studio is most likely waiting for the weekend box office results to announce any sort of follow-up, and there’s no kind of preliminary word on whether first time director Tim Miller could return as well. Industry estimates have Deadpool making upwards of $70 million for the President’s Day weekend.
Producer Simon Kinberg told Collider last year that sequel plans were in place even while they were making the first movie:
“We certainly are talking about the sequel — we were talking about the sequel while we were making the movie just because when you make a film like this that’s from a serialized source material, you hope that it’s the first of many. … But yeah [Fox is] feeling good about it, we’re all feeling really proud of it, so hopefully before it comes out we will be well into the process of figuring out a sequel.”
Despite this being exactly what fans and star Ryan Reynolds want, with Reynolds saying the Deadpool-related X-Force movie is his “next priority,” the report should be met with a bit of caution.
Back in 2011 when Reynolds starred in the universally reviled Green Lantern adaptation, which is handily made fun of throughout Deadpool, The Hollywood Reporter announced that it would get a sequel. One gigantic box office bomb and five years later there’s no Green Lantern 2. Will they be wrong again about Deadpool 2?
It took a long time to get the original made, so expect the filmmakers to fight even harder to get a sequel into production if the original performs well at the box office this weekend.
And who knows? Maybe the second credits sequence that Reese referenced on Twitter will tie into the sequel? Find out when Deadpool hits movie screens this Friday.
