“Deadpool & Wolverine” marks Marvel Studios‘ first big entry into live-action mutants ahead of their reboot of the “X-Men” franchise that is currently in development. The Multiverse-focused movie has over-delivered at the box office and is on the path to surpassing the first two movies within weeks. Deadline is now projecting that the R-rated superhero event pic should earn $205 million domestically and $438.3 million at the worldwide box office.
The success of “Deadpool & Wolverine” is obviously going to give the studio confidence that people will show up to more R-rated projects if they offer them. Marvel’s Kevin Feige has already confirmed their “Blade” reboot, starring two-time Oscar-winner Mahershala Ali, is aiming to be another R-rated MCU entry with the mature angle being “inherent to the character.”
This certainly should give Marvel Studios an extra incentive to proceed with things like “Deadpool 4,” “X-Force,” and potentially the Canadian-based mutant team Alpha Flight. Some other characters that might deserve the R-rated movie treatment include Punisher (Actor Jon Bernthal already reprises Frank Castle in “Daredevil: Born Again”), Deathlok, Psylocke, and the new Wolverine with his solo adventures in Madripoor (established via “The Falcon & The Winter Soldier”) or his Weapon X Program origin.
While the Multiverse angle of “Deadpool & Wolverine” (No spoilers) seemed to point toward Wade’s appearance in “Avengers: Secret Wars,” what’s next for the Merc With A Mouth and the TVA isn’t entirely clear.
This summer’s “Deadpool & Wolverine” will be the only big MCU feature film installment this year from Marvel Studios peppered in with Sony’s bootleg Marvel universe installments “Kraven: The Hunter” and “Venom 3” hoping to squeeze a few more dollars out of an exhausted audience that has caught-on to their attempts to cash-in on rushed and poorly planned superhero movies. There is some genuine excitement for “Deadpool 3” after the recent trailer drop earlier in the month, and something long suspected might have just been confirmed about the sequel’s villain.
A filing with the U.S. Copyright Office, a new harbinger of information and speculation for fan sites, has quietly mentioned that Emma Corrin‘s villainess character is going to be Cassandra Nova. A mutant telepath that just happens to be connected to Professor X in a big way.
The tidbit, filed by Disney/Marvel themselves, would confirm a longstanding online rumor that Corrin is playing a version of Professor Charles Xavier’s evil twin sister from the comics. However, how Cassandra will be presented to the audience in her cinematic incarnation has yet to be made official. She could simply be a variant of the X-Men character as the sequel is confirmed to feature variants (We’re already getting different takes on both Wade and Logan) of all sorts of characters and might be a more suitable angle rather than having her an elderly sibling to Patrick Stewart‘s version from previous films. Corrin’s role has long been established as a villain just like Matthew Macfadyen‘s TVA bureaucrat, Paradox.
This posting would also back up previous trade reports that Jennifer Garner is indeed reprising the Elektra role. However, we’re still unclear how large that part is ultimately going to be. Promo artwork for the film has also sort of teased the inclusion of The Hand, which are primarily known as Marvel antagonists but Elektra finds herself controlling the group at a point in the comics.
Garner had recently worked with both director Shawn Levy and Ryan Reynolds on the time-traveling action flick “The Adam Project” which also featured Hulk actor Mark Ruffalo, as Garner and Ruffalo played the parents of Reynolds’ Adam. Fingers crossed we’re getting more of a cameo as the Fox incarnation of Elektra was sort of done horribly in both the “Daredevil” film led by Garner’s future husband Ben Affleck and the long-forgotten disastrous solo spinoff movie that ended the actress’ run as the Marvel heroine.
“Deadpool & Wolverine” is officially set to hit theaters on July 26, 2024, and we’re hopeful the next trailer will help to explain more of the actual plot as the teaser trailer mostly just established that the TVA and the Multiverse would indeed be playing a major role in the film’s story.
Yesterday, was the big Super Bowl game which obviously means expensive/overproduced ads and studios trying to get as many eyeballs on their upcoming films as possible. That seemed to be the perfect opportunity for Marvel Studios to first reveal footage from their big/only blockbuster film releasing this July, “Deadpool 3.” Now officially titled “Deadpool & Wolverine” (Something we long suspected would be picked to help promote Wade’s iconic X-Men co-star) and the teaser trailer released last night confirms that the Multiverse pic will indeed see the involvement of the Time Variance Authority from “Loki,” although, we haven’t spotted any established characters from the show, yet.
Director Shawn Levy and star/producer Ryan Reynolds are seemingly keeping to the R-rated action-focused superhero roots alongside the cheeky meta humor, something a lot of naysayers including the character’s co-creator Rob Liefeld had been completely skeptical about once Disney/Marvel got their hands on the franchise post-merger. It’s hard to say now that this doesn’t look like more of the same just with a MUCH bigger production budget compared to those last two installments alongside leaning heavily into the Multiverse of it all.
In the trailer, we see that Matthew Macfadyen‘s character (A TVA agent or simple bureaucrat) is attempting to recruit Wade for some sort of reason and will seemingly bring him into the greater Marvel Cinematic Universe. Although, from the looks of things we’re mostly getting Fox/Singerverse characters such as the return of actor Aaron Stanford as Pyro (Who hasn’t appeared in the franchise since “X3: The Last Stand” and could signal more Singerverse actors coming back) and a potential nod to Patrick Stewart‘s second return as Professor X after a previous appearance in “Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness” as part of The Illuminati on Earth-838.
Longtime Wolverine fans will likely notice the club/casino scene where Wade is about to approach a variant of Wolverine at a card table, who looks to be in his Madripoor persona Patch. The identifying factor is that Logan is wearing Patch’s signature white suit jacket and I’m also willing to bet an eye patch too. Nothing says that scene is set in Madripoor, but it’s long been a hangout of Wolverine and Marvel has already established the cutthroat location in “The Falcon & The Winter Soldier.”
Of course, it’s been long confirmed that Hugh Jackman will be back as Wolverine and we got a little tease of that interaction towards the end of the teaser. However, it’s still unclear how many Foxverse cameos we’ll ultimately get as Jennifer Garner’s Elektra and The Hand have been teased recently in promo materials that have made their way online. While Marvel/Disney haven’t announced Garner’s participation, if Taylor Swift is actually in there too, and will likely want to keep other appearances secret for as long as they can. The one thing on their side is an avalanche of real and fake online rumors about the film making it harder to actually pin down what is real and what is bogus concerning the film. At least we have validations of some of those rumors, unclear if the other trailers/spots will be spoiling other surprises before its July 26, 2024, release date.
Anyways, if you haven’t already watched the “Deadpool & Wolverine” teaser a hundred times already you can view it below.
THE RONIN 