Despite the two installments so far earning a combined total of over $1.5 billion at the box office, there are now more questions than ever surrounding the future of the Deadpool franchise. A lot of it has to do with the Merc with a Mouth’s strictly R-rated antics, and how Marvel Studios will find a way to introduce a character like Wade Wilson into the MCU.
With over a decade of history and almost two-dozen movies under their belts, Marvel have a certain formula for their projects that all fit snugly into their established mythology, and they’ve never had a foul-mouthed, self-aware and fourth wall-breaking character like Deadpool at their disposal before. Reports are already making the rounds that star Ryan Reynolds is having disagreements with the studio about Deadpool 3’s creative direction, and it’ll be interesting to see what compromises, if any, end up being made.
Before Disney’s acquisition of Fox though, Josh Brolin was set to reprise his role as Cable in both the previous incarnation of Deadpool 3 and Drew Goddard’s proposed X-Force spinoff, and having played the Infinity Saga’s end of level boss Thanos for Marvel already, there’s been some speculation about the actor’s continued involvement as the time-traveling mutant.
In a recent interview, though, Deadpool creator Rob Liefeld revealed that Brolin is desperate to get the chance to play Cable again, even despite the fact that he’s already a veteran of the MCU under a different guise as the villain of the biggest movie in history.
“Josh wants to be Cable again sooner rather than later. He is itching to be Cable again. He loved being Cable. He told me he understands how beloved his role as Thanos is, but he doesn’t completely look like Josh Brolin. There are Josh Brolin’s own words telling me, Rob Liefeld. He told me, ‘Rob, when I appeared as Cable in Deadpool 2, my phones rang off the hook’. It changed everything for him, and obviously Josh is gonna get some career lifetime achievement award at some point. The guy is just one of our greatest actors.”
Forgetting that Brolin was an Academy Award nominated actor who made his film debut in The Goonies over 30 years before Deadpool 2 “changed everything” for him, there’s no reason why he shouldn’t be able to play Cable again. Thanos was a giant purple alien, after all, and fans would surely be able to suspend their disbelief that Deadpool‘s running buddy sounds awfully similar to the guy that initially wiped out half of the universe with a click of his fingers.
