As one of the busiest actors in the business with a dozen projects in various stages of development, not to mention his outside interests that have seen him build a gin empire, co-own a mobile provider, launch a marketing company, sit on the board of directors at Match Group and most recently purchase a soccer team with It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia creator Rob McElhenney, free time is very much at a premium for Ryan Reynolds.
This isn’t great news for Deadpool fans, with Kevin Feige confirming that the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s first canonical R-rated installment isn’t going to shoot until next year at the earliest, meaning the Merc with a Mouth won’t be headlining his third solo adventure until at least 2023.
As a character played by an A-list star that’s already seen his movies rake in over $1.5 billion at the box office, though, Marvel aren’t going to want to sit on such a valuable commodity for too long, and it looks increasingly unlikely that Wade Wilson will be off our screens until Deadpool 3 arrives.
In fact, we’ve now heard from our sources – the same ones that told us Luke Skywalker would be returning for The Mandalorian, and that Rachel McAdams would be back for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness – that Reynolds and Feige are keen to start utilizing the Merc with a Mouth as soon as possible and he’s expected to make cameos across a huge number of Phase Four projects to ease him into the MCU.
Of course, Deadpool‘s self-aware status and love of breaking the fourth wall means that he can show up literally anywhere and it won’t take a stretch of the imagination for him to explain why, and it makes sense that the studio would start building the hype around one of their most popular assets as soon as they can.
