Deadpool 3.
Pour one out for ol’ X-Force. Victim of the [Disney-Fox] merger. — Deadpool creator Rob Liefeld.
Disney’s acquisition of 20th Century Fox has put the Deadpool 2 followup X-Force on the shelf — for now. While it seems like a no-brainer to push forward on the $1.5 billion franchise — which racked up $780-million box office worldwide for Deadpool and then $730 million for Deadpool 2 — Disney doesn’t plan to release Fox movies that aren’t completed or in production when the deal closes this Spring.
X-Force is not in production. Early last year, it was expected to start filming in Vancouver in the Fall after writer-director Drew Goddard finished shooting his 1960s noir thriller Bad Times at the El Royale here. (Goddard has Marvel cred, having created the Daredevil series for Netflix.)
The X-Force title turned out to be a bit of a tease, if not a massive troll of fans, ahead of the Deadpool 2 theatrical release in May. Most of the promo-ed X-Force members were killed off in spectacular fashion on their first mission, leaving Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds), Cable (Josh Brolin) and Domino (Zazie Beetz) for whatever comes next — which was the plan from the start.
But nothing happened in the Fall. Ryan Reynolds moved on to shoot Michael Bay’s Netflix movie 6 Underground in Europe about six billionaires who fake their own death and form an elite team to take down bad guys.
And this Spring, Reynolds is expected to film Free Guy in Montreal/Boston.
Will there be a Deadpool 3 under the Disney-Marvel banner?
Will Deadpool get to play with other Marvel characters in the MCU?
We’ll have to wait and see.