If Deadpool belonged to any other studio, then you can bet your bottom dollar that we’d have probably seen the third installment by now, seeing as the Merc with a Mouth’s two solo outings are the second and third highest-grossing R-rated movies in history behind only Joker, raking in over $1.5 billion at the box office.
A franchise that’s part of Hollywood’s most bankable genre, with a proven track record of critical and commercial success, that also boasts one of the world’s biggest movie stars acting as the creative driving force by starring, producing and co-writing is basically a license to print money. But frustratingly, things aren’t that straightforward now that Deadpool belongs to Disney.
Deadpool 3 might officially be in active development, but it seems that we won’t be seeing it for a while yet, with Reynolds’ schedule jam-packed for the next couple of years and countless rumors that Disney and Marvel Studios are struggling to figure out how to introduce the self-aware, foul-mouthed and very much R-rated superhero into their shared universe.
There’s already been reports of creative overhauls and behind the scenes arguments and there isn’t even any other talent officially attached yet besides Reynolds himself, but we’ve now heard that one of the many ideas being discussed is to have Deadpool interact with some of the MCU’s newest faces, and Ghost Rider is said to be near the top of that list.
According to our intel – which comes from the same sources who told us Han was returning in Fast & Furious 9 and Ahsoka Tano will show up in The Mandalorian season 2 – both the studio and Reynolds like the idea of having Deadpool visit the wilder and wackier corners of the MCU, and a guy that rides a motorcycle with his skull on fire seems like an ideal candidate. As such, the plan is to have the Merc show up in some capacity in the Ghost Rider movie.
It remains unclear how exactly he’d factor into it at the moment and, of course, plans can always change given the continued discussions about how exactly Deadpool is going to be handled. But if Keanu Reeves ends up playing the MCU’s Johnny Blaze as has been speculated, then teaming him up with Ryan Reynolds would no doubt send the internet into total meltdown.
