The huge financial and critical success of Deadpool over the last few weeks has had a big impact, or at least it has started people talking. There’s been chatter of more superhero movies making use of an R rating, where the Merc with the Mouth will show up next, and how he fits into 20th Century Fox’s mutant-centric superhero universe. All that is up in the air, but one thing that appears fairly certain is that Deadpool writes Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick will likely continue to be involved moving forward, and that they will at least have some say in the upcoming X-Force movie.
The two scribes have been all over the place lately, and when they stopped by The Playlist for a friendly chat, the subject of their involvement in X-Force came up. While it doesn’t sound like Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick will be hugely involved—it sounds like they’re too busy to write the script—they’ll still have a hand shaping the picture. Wernick said:
We will have a hand in it. I think everything that ‘Deadpool’ is involved in we will have a hand in and it’s a universe that Ryan [Reynolds] and us are very close to and very protective of, so I do think we would absolutely involved in that franchise as well. If it’s Deadpool related, I think you’ll see some of our fingerprints on that.
It makes a lot of sense for Fox to keep Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick around for X-Force. Along with star Ryan Reynolds and director Tim Miller, they were part of the driving force behind Deadpool, which, if you’ve been paying attention, was an exhausting, six-year process to get where we ware. They obviously love this franchise, and them being involved in some capacity is reminiscent of other growing cinematic universes, like how Zack Snyder’s DNA is all over the burgeoning DC Extended Universe, and how J.J. Abrams’ influence will still be felt in the Star Wars realm.
It also sounds like, though they exist in the same universe and some characters may cross over—like with Colossus—Deadpool and the X-Men will, by and large, be their own separate franchises. With that, again, keeping Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese in the fold is a good idea. We already know that Cable will appear in Deadpool 2, and the time travelling badass soldier from the future has also been the leader of X-Force. So with all of these elements swirling around in the realm that Reese and Wernick helped kick off, it’s only logical that they’ll be involved at some point.
We don’t know when we’ll see either Deadpool 2 or X-Force, but with as much momentum and attention as Deadpool has generated (it’s earned more than $520 million worldwide and will likely be the box office champ for a third straight week), don’t be shocked if the ball gets rolling sooner rather than later.
