Deadpool and X-Force creator Rob Liefeld admits he’s “not really that crazy” about Kevin Feige and Marvel Studios’ path for the Marvel Cinematic Universe and claims the Disney-owned studio has “zero” plans for Deadpool, the R-rated former Fox franchise starring Ryan Reynolds as the Merc with a Mouth. Disney assumed control of the Deadpool and X-Men properties following its $71.3 billion acquisition of Fox, where filmmaker Drew Goddard was developing X-Force — an R-rated spinoff teaming Deadpool with Josh Brolin’s mutant mercenary Cable and other hard-edged characters — alongside Fox’s other X-Men offshoots likely scrapped by the merger, including Channing Tatum’s Gambit and James Franco’s Multiple Man.
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Asked by Inverse about the possibility of a Deadpool / X-Force movie after the spinoff was set up in Fox’s Deadpool 2, Liefeld answered, “I don’t know. Here’s what people don’t want to hear, but thank God I’m a realist. I feel like Deadpool, the movies, they’ve set sail.”
“We got two brilliant movies, and we live in a culture that always looks forward because all they’re ever selling us is ‘next, next, next.’ It’s the fever,” Liefeld continued. “For me, as the fever calms down, people just need to calm down and realize that Deadpool 1 and 2 were released within two years of each other, 2016 and 2018, and I just can’t… I’m not really that crazy about Marvel’s plan right now.”
That plan includes November’s Black Widow, the first feature film led by Scarlett Johansson’s super-spy Avenger, and expected franchise starters The Eternals and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, both scheduled for release in 2021. New heroes will lead the way into Marvel’s Phase 4 and beyond following the swan songs of Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) and Captain America (Chris Evans) in Avengers: Endgame.
“It’s the first time I go, ‘Hey, Feige, did you even have a plan? Your plan was Eternals and Shang-Chi? That was your plan? And Black Widow?’” Liefeld said. “So they close the door, Chris Evans says goodbye, Robert Downey Jr. says goodbye, Black Widow falls off a cliff says goodbye, they almost lose [Spider-Man actor] Tom Holland to Sony… but you’re a genius, Marvel, you’re a genius.”
If Marvel Studios started production on Deadpool 3 this year, Liefeld said, “It would come out in four years. I can’t be excited about that.” Saying he “can’t gloss it up,” Liefeld added, “You want to know the plan with Deadpool right now? They have a goose egg, zero, zero.”
In a recent interview with ComicBook.com, Liefeld expressed doubts a Deadpool threequel was a priority for Marvel Studios despite star and producer Reynolds in December confirming the project was moving forward under Disney.
Liefeld earlier called the long-gestating X-Force movie a “victim” of the Disney-Fox merger and said the spinoff, which he referred to as an R-rated Avengers, would have grossed at least an “easy” $800 million at the box office.
“Deadpool was Fox and now it’s in the hands of Marvel over there at Disney,” Reynolds said during a May 5 virtual appearance on The Tonight Show. “I see infinite possibility in either version. If Deadpool were to be in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, I think it would be explosive and amazing. What a sandbox to play in. If Deadpool continued to get to just do his own thing and be his own thing, also just infinite possibilities.”
The earliest Marvel Studios could open Deadpool 3 would be on a currently reserved date of October 7, 2022.
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Image Credit: Ryan Reynolds/SickKids
