Deadpool Will Return! But Is It Deadpool 4?

Deadpool Will Return! But Is It Deadpool 4?

Ryan Reynolds recently gave some updates about the future of Deadpool while at a comic con. Deadpool is an incredibly popular character and has headlined three very profitable films. But there is some other news regarding Deadpool’s return that I am more curious about. What is it? Here are my thoughts!

Deadpool’s Return

         Before diving into the specifics, I am not remotely surprised that Ryan Reynolds is looking to return as Deadpool. Reynolds of course loves the character and really fought hard to get the 2016 character because he loved the character and he hated how Deadpool was used in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. All three of the Deadpool movies were the highest grossing R-rated movie when they came out. Deadpool & Wolverine surpassed Joker by about $250 million to be the highest grossing R-rated movie of all time. I do not see any film on the horizon surpassing that number, so Deadpool & Wolverine could be the highest grossing R-rated movie for quite a while. With all that said, the fact that Deadpool is returning is not surprising and there is also some pressure from Marvel wanting more of Deadpool because he sells tickets and the studio wants money. With it seeming like the next saga of the MCU is going to be very mutant centric, having Deadpool show up makes sense because he is of course a mutant and has strong ties to the X-Men. He has not been confirmed to be in Doomsday, but if he is, that could better set up Deadpool’s future in the MCU. 

         After Reynolds said this, this past weekend there was some other news revealed. This news comes from John Campea, who is a major face in the movie critic/movie news section of the internet. He talked about this on his show and revealed that he also knows some information about Deadpool’s future, and this is what he said. “This new film is not going to be a straight up Deadpool movie. I have said this before on the show, I will say it again, I have spoken to somebody and this is very definitive…‘Yes, Reynolds is writing another script, but it is not going to be a Deadpool led movie. Deadpool will be in it, but he is only going to be a part of the ensemble'.” Campea said this comes from a source that he has and he trusts this person with this sort of information. So yes, Deadpool is returning but it sounds like it might not be Deadpool 4.

My Concerns

         I am positive on all three of the Deadpool movies, Deadpool 2 is easily the weakest, but it is still a fun movie with charm and humor. Deadpool & Wolverine are easily the best of the bunch. There has been so much speculation and rumors about whether Deadpool will be in our upcoming Avengers movies. There are two immediate concerns that people have with putting Deadpool in Avengers. 

  First up, Deadpool thrives in the R-rating, that is the rating that the character was born into, and I do not think Reynolds wants to take the character out of the R-rating. But there is something you can do with Deadpool in a PG-13 setting; you can do a hard PG-13 and still make Deadpool quippy. It just might not be as good if he was in the R-rating. I know this is a big concern for many people and I get that, I am curious about that, but I am not concerned about that as much. 

Second, the issue that I am more concerned about is the fourth wall breaking aspect. So much of what made Deadpool so fresh and so fun are the fourth wall breaking jokes that they did. They are the type of jokes that could only work with Deadpool. They got away with it because they were playing coy in the first two films as to whether Deadpool was in the same X-Men timeline, and even the X-Men timeline was a mess and did not really work. The MCU has had a tight continuity and kept a similar tone throughout. They tried breaking the fourth wall in She-Hulk: Attorney at Law and it did not really work. It broke the rules of the universe, and not in a good way. The finale of that show totally breaks the fourth wall and does some weird and wild things. Granted, I trust Ryan Reynolds breaking the fourth wall more than I do the She-Hulk writers, but the MCU is more tightly put together then Fox X-Men, so it is harder to do that. I want what makes Deadpool special and unique to just stick to the Deadpool movies not bleed into the MCU. 

I am judging this news too harshly since we do not know what the next Deadpool film will return. Maybe once we see a pitch and what they are doing, having Deadpool break the fourth wall makes total sense. As of right now and assuming the film is more straight forward, I have a lot of questions as to who Deadpool can work in the MCU and how the Deadpoolisms work outside of a Deadpool movie.