If any other studio with the exception of Disney had acquired the rights to a massively popular comic book character who headlined two solo movies that combined to earn over $1.5 billion at the box office, then you can guarantee we’d have already seen Deadpool 3 by now.
While Warner Bros. and DC Films are happy to create standalone blockbusters and even entire franchises that don’t exist within the main continuity of their shared mythology, that’s not something Marvel have ever considered. This puts Deadpool in a difficult predicament, because his very nature as a foul-mouthed, self-aware and R-rated superhero makes him instantly at odds with Kevin Feige’s carefully crafted cinematic universe.
Of course, Deadpool is far too popular to simply be left sitting on the sidelines gathering dust, and now that the Merc with a Mouth’s first outing at his new home is officially in active development, all parties have clearly come up with a solution that suits everyone. However, insider Daniel Richtman is claiming that Disney didn’t want Deadpool 3 to be R-rated and tried to convince Feige to make it PG-13, which is something we all expected to have been causing issues ever since the character first fell into their lap.
It’s a Catch-22 situation; Deadpool doesn’t work in a PG-13 environment, with Feige and Reynolds no doubt fully aware that watering down the core appeal of the snarky assassin would be doing a disservice to both themselves and the fans. Then again, the Mouse House simply doesn’t make R-rated movies, which is presumably why Marvel’s Chief Creative Officer has gone to the trouble of explaining in depth why Deadpool 3 is the only adult-skewing project on the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s schedule, which numbers upwards of 25 films and TV shows.
