Even though the character recently became a part of the world’s biggest and most popular franchise, we could still be a long way off from seeing Deadpool 3. There have already been reports about disagreements over the movie’s rating and creative team, while even Ryan Reynolds admitted that he isn’t sure when the Merc with a Mouth’s third solo outing will arrive.
If any other studio acquired the rights to a superhero that had headlined two movies that earned over $1.5 billion combined at the box office, then the next project would be fast-tracked into production as soon as possible, but Deadpool’s staunchly R-rated nature and self-awareness don’t exactly seem to fit too easily into the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s established template.
One rumored direction is to have the title hero be the only person who knows that they’re starring in a reboot under new ownership, which would make sense from both a character and storytelling perspective, but given how slow the development process has been moving along so far, it looks like 2023 will be the very earliest that we’ll see Deadpool 3.
However, Marvel will surely be keen to tease Wade Wilson’s arrival a lot sooner than that, and we’ve now heard that he’s being set up for cameos in two Phase Four projects. According to our intel – which comes from the same sources that told us that She-Hulk and Ms. Marvel shows were in the works before either was officially announced, and that Ryan Reynolds had a secret cameo in Hobbs & Shaw – Deadpool is currently scheduled to show up in both Thor: Love and Thunder and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness in some capacity, although it likely won’t be anything approaching a major role.
While the scripts for these films are far from finished and will no doubt undergo many more revisions, Deadpool has already been linked to both MCU sequels already and there are countless ways to fit him into the story even if it ends up amounting to a few brief seconds of screentime. After all, the higher-ups will no doubt be keen to start utilizing their newest marketable asset as soon as possible.
