It’s official: Deadpool 3 finally has a director. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Free Guy helmer Shawn Levy is in talks to reunite with Ryan Reynolds for the new Deadpool sequel.
Levy and Reynolds have previously collaborated on both Free Guy and Netflix’s The Adam Project, which was released today. And there’s more good news for fans of the first two Deadpool movies: Original screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick are now back on Deadpool 3. They are replacing Bob’s Burgers scribes Wendy Molyneux and Lizzie Molyneux-Logelin, who wrote the previous draft of Deadpool 3.
Deadpool was created by Fabian Nicieza and artist Rob Liefeld in 1991 as an enemy of the New Mutants, and later, X-Force. However, Deadpool’s wacky antics quickly struck a chord with fans, and he eventually headlined his own comic book series. He also transitioned from villain to anti-hero, and he has been known to team up with X-Force and the X-Men on occasion.
Reynolds pushed for a Deadpool movie before landing the role in X-Men Origins: Wolverine in 2009. Unfortunately, neither Reynolds nor fans were satisfied by that film’s treatment of Deadpool. It took another seven years of lobbying before a solo Deadpool movie debuted in 2016. It was such a massive hit for 20th Century Fox that it became the highest-grossing film in the X-Men series.
Deadpool 2 arrived in 2018 and introduced Josh Brolin as Cable and Zazie Beetz as Domino. This was the last Deadpool movie before Disney purchased Fox’s entertainment assets. Regardless, Reynolds briefly reprised his role as Deadpool for a Free Guy promotional video last year.
There has been some question about whether Deadpool 3 will maintain the R-rating of the first two films. Marvel’s Kevin Feige and former Disney CEO Robert Iger previously indicated that Deadpool 3 will still go for an R. However, it’s unknown if Disney’s current CEO, Bob Chapek, feels the same way. The film doesn’t currently have a release date.
