Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick made their names with 2009’s Zombieland, but it was last year’s Deadpool that truly proved their worth. Sizzling with wit, cleverness and pop culture references for days, the screenwriters became some of the most celebrated pens of 2016, and their talents weren’t ignored by 20th Century Fox. They were quickly re-assigned to write Deadpool 2, but now they’ve got some bigger challenges ahead of them.
For instance, they’re going to help usher the X-Force, notably Domino and Cable, into the X-Men cinematic universe, and in a recent interview, they discussed how exactly they’ll approach such a task. Speaking with Collider, Reese and Wernick talked about the challenging prospect and how they hope to ease these new characters into the Merc with the Mouth’s hotly-anticipated sequel.
“There is a responsibility we have to the X-Force universe, and I do think we will not disappoint the fans going into Deadpool 2 and then setting up X-Force and beyond,” said Reese.
Further on, Wernick added the following:
“We never want to let the tail wag the dog. We want to tell the best Deadpool story we can. But I do think we have a responsibility to think about a larger universe in the way that Marvel does and start to put pieces in place. Some of these movies feel overstuffed and almost choking with the need to set up eighteen different things that pay off down the road, and we want to avoid that responsibility to the extent that it hurts us. We want to hint at things, we want to plan some characters, and we want to make some nods, but we’re very, very cognizant about making sure that Deadpool is above all a Deadpool movie.”
Reese also noted that they’re not going to approach Deadpool 2 as a set-up for the X-Force, but rather another inclusion in Deadpool’s sequel — which, more or less, is the wisest route to go. When you spend too much time setting up other characters while ignoring the ones most central, you get the type of problems that were often criticized throughout Iron Man 2 and, most recently, Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice. Thankfully, Reese and Wernick are approaching this intelligently and with their heads on their shoulders. Hopefully, their newest screenplay proves just as explosively fun as the one they provided for last year’s most exceptional superhero surprise.
