Were it not for Deadpool, Marvel Studios and Disney would have no trouble incorporating the X-Men IP they acquired with the Fox merger. With Dark Phoenix considered a failure critically and financially (though it’s really not that bad), it’d have been easy to conclude that after 20 years, the X-Universe has simply reached the end of its natural life. But then there’s the still wildly popular Deadpool and his R-rated antics. With assurances made that they aren’t going to reboot and recast the character, how do you bring Ryan Reynolds’ Merc into the MCU?
Well, now we may have the answer. Sources close to WGTC – the same ones who revealed that Ace Ventura 3 was in development, which trusted insider Daniel RPK recently corroborated, and that a She-Hulk show was coming to Disney Plus – are now telling us that 2021’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness will see the good Doctor travel through the multiverse visiting different universes, including Fox’s X-Universe. There, we’ll see Deadpool pop up and possibly, other X-Men as well. Following that, we’ll also get to see the Merc again in the film’s post-credits scene, which will set up future MCU appearances for him. His exact role in the movie is still unknown, but it’s said that it’ll be more or less a cameo.
Details beyond that are still unclear at this early stage, but it seems that post-Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, audiences are responding well to a bit of meta-textual fun in their superhero media. The CW’s “Crisis on Infinite Earths” crossover has tied the Arrowverse with Batman 1966, Batman (1989) and Smallville (among others), so who knows where Doctor Strange might also head? I reckon there’s an outside chance he may stop off in Sony’s Venom-verse, too, potentially linking the two together for any future crossovers, but that’s just speculation for now.
In any case, if the MCU does decide to go down this route, then expect its horizons to dramatically broaden. We’re already going to get alternate versions of familiar plots in What If…? on Disney Plus, so it seems that the time is right to expand the storytelling possibilities of what we can see. And it’ll all begin with Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, which we now know will feature Deadpool‘s MCU debut.
