'Deadpool 2' Director On Building Toward 'X-Force'

Deadpool 2 gave director David Leitch plenty of freedom, meaning he did not have many restrictions or instructions leading into Fox's X-Force movie.

As in all comic book movie universes, one film will always lead to the next. Often times, there will be Easter eggs or references of what's coming while other films somtimes serve a larger narrative than their own almost entirely. For Deadpool 2, however, director David Leitch did not have to wrestle with the overarching narrative of the X-Men universe and the X-Force movie which will follow it up.

"When I took the job, I had just been hired to develop X-Force and I was working on my pitch of the world and the characters that I wanted to use into the universe when I got the call about Deadpool 2 and like, 'Hey, would you be interested in directing Deadpool 2?'" Leitch told ComicBook.com in an exclusive interview.
"And I was like, wow, that's a big, daunting task, because X-Force was like, 'Okay, I get to start the universe and then I'm not going to be dealing with the expectation of a sequel, and I'll have my imprint on something.'"

Then Leitch had some creative meetings about the film he ultimately directed, which convinced him it was time to get on board.

"Then when I met with Ryan [Reynolds] and we discussed where they thought, Ryan, Rhett [Reese] and Paul [Wernick], where Deadpool 2 was gonna go and like, it is really an introduction to X-Force," Leitch said. "It kinda made sense because I was already sort of working my pitch into that."

As for character Leitch hopes to see in a potential Deadpool 3 or X-Force movie, he has a long list of characters from which he can choose. However, he isn't ready to reveal who the newcomers might be.

"There is a list that the studio has of the X-Men characters that they have rights to," Leitch said. "If there's any cross over, like rights with Marvel, then it might be a discussion. But for the most part we stayed within the stuff that Fox has rights over right now. Which is loosely anyone who's in the X-Men universe, including X-Force and those types of characters. So, that's kind of how it all worked. I mean, we didn't try to push to grab stuff that we didn't have rights over or that Fox didn't have control over."

He does, however, have a few returning faces he would like to work with. "I know some ones that I'd love to work with again," Leitch said. "I mean, obviously I love Cable, Domino, Peter, those would be so fun to have back. In terms of new characters, I don't know yet. I'll reserve that 'til I think about it. I mean, there are some really fun characters in the X-Force universe that we hadn't explored yet and that would be interesting."

Deadpool 2 is now playing in theaters.