Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
HDo you solve problems like Deadpool in the Marvel Cinematic Universe? Deadpool & Wolverine found a way: instead of incorporating bloodthirsty, fourth-wall breakers and mouths into the clean world of Thor, Iron Man and Spider-Man, Shawn Levy’s 2024 film decided to take it outside instead. Why bother making every chimichanga-munching mutant eligible when you can prove they’re not all jokes? Why be another cog in the Marvel machine when you can stand on the sidelines, point out loose ends and watch the office greenbacks roll in like Christmas 2019?
Deadpool & Wolverine made $1.3bn worldwide, becoming the second highest-grossing film of 2024 and the richest R-rated film of all time. But it did nothing to bring Ryan Reynolds’ antihero into the MCU, unless one reads a few thousand Kevin Feige comics. At the end of the movie, Dead Pool it seems that there is no closer to being the savior of Marvel than Happy Hogan and using Mjolnir. He remains a passive observer from the sidelines, less an MCU character than a character.
What causes it this week’s news that Reynolds is starting to rekindle interest, to say the least. Because really, about what exactly? How do you make another Marvel movie when you’ve separated the entire business? How will Deadpool emerge as the hero of Avengers: Secret Wars, and perhaps sacrifice himself to prevent Doctor Doom from being twisted into one big Latverian park, when he already saw Marvel’s continuity as something worth exploring to lose?
No one is interested in how another Marvel-era Deadpool movie might turn out. But some reports say the actor will take part in the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday, although maybe not as part of the biggest combo team.
New trailer for Doomsdaywhich was released earlier this week, doesn’t do much to make it sound better. Reynolds is nowhere to be seen, but Channing Tatum’s Gambit, best known in Deadpool & Wolverine, does make an appearance. Patrick Stewart’s Professor X and Ian McKellen’s Magneto appear to be trapped in the film, while Rebecca Romijn’s Mystique is also walking around in blue paint. They’re all the same kind of, hopelessly unhinged 20th Century Fox-era mutant that Deadpool calls home. It’s not hard to imagine that Reynolds is walking somewhere nearby, waiting to pass the place and complaining about Robert Downey Jr.’s salary.
after advertising
And yet if Wade Wilson can be more than a guy who shouts jokes from cheap seats, if he will eventually be integrated more into the MCU, at some point he will have to stop mocking the Fox-era revolutionaries who seem to be caught less than saving the various characters. Reynolds recently suggested that Deadpool works best as a single, but it’s interesting if other characters are allowed to have an interest. Reuniting with Gambit and the other residents of Charles Xavier’s mansion will not be just another group of people to be mocked, mutilated and discarded. At some point Deadpool has to stop treating the Fox universe like a comic book, and face the possibility that his destruction might actually mean something to him.
That doesn’t mean to stop the scandals or force Wade to speak seriously about the role that has gone down with Alan Silvestri. The first two Deadpool movies sometimes managed to create a real feel without requiring their hero to stop being a clown. But if they have to play any role at the end of the various groups, the joke will not always be that the stories of heroes are stupid and the whole business is a big dream of big people. The most popular Marvel movie of the past four years may have put us off watching Marvel movies in the first place, but it’s not often that Reynolds can pull off a glorious SNL parody of superhero silliness and convince us all he’s made a movie.
Sooner or later Deadpool has to stop mocking the apocalypse and try to do something about it.
