SPOILER WARNING: The following article contains some significant spoilers for Deadpool & Wolverine. If you are not part of the massive movie-going audience that pushed the blockbuster to its record-setting opening weekend, continue at your own risk!
It is common practice for films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe to set up sequels, either with cliffhangers, dramatic end credit scenes or straight-up promises of "______ will return," but that's something that's surprisingly not on the agenda for Deadpool & Wolverine. The blockbuster's story only tangentially touches the main canon of the MCU a.k.a. Earth-616 (the titular characters both staying in the Fox X-Men Universe a.k.a. Earth-10005 at the end of the movie), and there is no indication that a Deadpool 4 is on the table.
As it turns out, there's a good reason for that: it's probably not.
Ryan Reynolds has been working his ass off in recent months promoting the release of Deadpool & Wolverine, and he is evidently worried that the family time he would lose making another film would effectively end his family. The actor is married to Blake Lively, who makes a masked cameo as Ladypool in the blockbuster, and he recently said on Jimmy Kimmel Live! that she wouldn't be too happy if her husband dedicated herself to another Wade Wilson solo film. Asked about the potential of a Deadpool 4 being part of the slate of upcoming Marvel movies, Reynolds said,
Oh God no. My wife and children will divorce me. Jimmy I have no prenup with any of them. I will be capital B ‘Broke’ and in turn doing Deadpool 4 because I need money.
Before panic starts setting in for all of you Deadpool fans out there, you'll hopefully be calmed by the knowledge that Ryan Reynolds is only presently ruling out Deadpool 4. Just because he isn't making another superhero blockbuster with the Merc With The Mouth as the principal star doesn't mean that his run playing the character is over. Instead, it feels exceptionally likely that he will be soon be putting the suit back on for the action in Avengers: Secret Wars (if not also Avengers: Doomsday starring Robert Downey Jr.).
Of course, even if Ryan Reynolds did say that his time playing Deadpool was over, could we really believe him? After all, that's what Hugh Jackman said about Wolverine before reprising the character in Deadpool & Wolverine, and it's what Patrick Stewart said about Professor X before his cameo in Doctor Strange And The Multiverse Of Madness.
When you think about it in broad strokes, Deadpool & Wolverine is less of an introduction of X-Men characters to the Marvel Cinematic Universe and more a goodbye to the long-running X-Men universe – which was crucial in the launch of modern superhero movies. This is made very clear in the film's emotional end credits scene set to "Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)" by Green Day, but Ryan Reynolds also drove the point home with a post on Instagram, writing,
This isn’t just Deadpool saying, ‘Oh, Hello’ to the MCU. It’s Deadpool– and Hugh, Shawn and me – saying farewell to a place and an era that literally made us. We are forever grateful to the fun, weird, uneven and risky world of 20th Century Fox. It was our origin story and we wouldn’t trade it for anything. And thank you to Kevin Feige and Disney for allowing us to share it.
What the future holds for Deadpool is unclear (again, Deadpool & Wolverine doesn't feature any kind of "Deadpool will return" message), but given the powerful box office numbers that the movie is putting up worldwide, it likely won't be long until we see Ryan Reynolds back in action. Needless to say, you can stay tuned here on CinemaBlend in the coming weeks, months and years for all updates on that front.
