Deadline reports that Emmy winning actor Peter Dinklage has been set for the lead role in Legendary’s reboot of the cult superhero franchise The Toxic Avenger from director Macon Blair. Peter isn’t a stranger to either comedy or genre projects with credits such as Game of Thrones, X-Men: Days of Future Past, and Pixels.
They don’t mention who Peter is playing but the assumption he’ll end up playing Melvin Junko or a version of him, a nerdy New Jersey janitor that is turned into the hulking Toxic Avenger aka Toxie after a prank by a bunch of bullies lands him into a batch of toxic waste.
It’s tone is all over the place as the violence is on par with stuff like RoboCop and Total Recall while being just as satirical as a parody like Scary Movie. I’m extremely curious to see how they want to approach the reboot and if they’ll attempt to be as violent as the original installments. However, with the popularity of a character like Deadpool that was created in the wake of Toxie’s popularity in the 1980s, it wouldn’t tough to see how Legendary might want to let director Macon Blair do what he likes with it. Blair is already working if Peter on the comedy Brothers for Legendary which co-stars Josh Brolin (Deadpool 2, Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame).
The Toxic Avenger is an oddball franchise since the films were hyper-violent it still managed to be given a children’s cartoon titled The Toxic Crusaders along with a batch of toys spawned from the cartoon and some comics published by Marvel Comics. I had a couple of toys from the cartoon myself growing up. It wasn’t all that uncommon for R-rated films to have toys released or cartoons marketed towards kids as movies like Police Academy, Robocop, Rambo, and Aliens had similar money-making ploys.
Brothers is seemingly still in the pre-production phase at Legendary and it’s unknown when they’ll want to start on The Toxic Avenger.
Back on Friday, there was finally an update on the status of Deadpool 3 with Marvel Studios moving forward on the sequel by hiring The Molyneux Sisters (Bob’s Burgers) to write the script. Along with it reaffirmed that the project will keep it’s R-rating, which is something that Disney/Marvel brass have been relaying to the press for years now, although, every couple of months it becomes newsworthy again.
I’ve come up with a list of mutants I’d personally like to see in Deadpool 3 and that would fit this R-rated corner of the MCU very nicely. The rating should discourage Marvel from trying to cram the main X-Men lineup into a violent Deadpool adventure which seems like bad idea when they have access to all these other cool X-Men characters that would fit the mature tone. I still suspect they’re going to allow them to work with a larger budget than the 20th Century Fox films.
Anyways, here is who I’d like to see show up in Deaddpool 3.
PSYLOCKE: Psylocke or Kwannon has a bit of a checkered past as the body of the Japanese woman that Betsy Braddock (sister of Captain Britain) inhabits was once an assassin under the purview of both The Mandarin (as Lady Mandarin) and The Hand/Yakuza. The character is more than weird and I wouldn’t be terribly shocked if they simply go with the Kwannon character instead of the messy body-swap stuff.
Kwannon is sort of more interesting given the connections to The Mandarin (the villain of Shang-Chi & The Legend of The Ten Rings) and The Hand via Yakuza boss Matsu’o Tsurayaba (Wolverine villain). Having Psylocke start out as a villain for criminal syndicates then redeemed to become a superhero joining the ranks of the X-Men and the more violent X-Force would make for an interesting character reboot since she didn’t even get an origin in X-Men: Apocalypse. Actress Olivia Munn has gone on the record with her frustration with Simon Kinberg and Brian Singer’s lack of knowledge.
Psylocke also has ties to the country of Madripoor which is being introduced in The Falcon & The Winter Soldier. The fictional Southeast Asian island nation could become a pivotal locale in future projects like X-Men films or something like Deadpool 3, as I think it’s about time they moved filming outside of Vancouver and explore some more different locations.
It would also be nice to see another Earthbound female Asian character outside of the Shang-Chi franchise kicking some ass in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. However, I wouldn’t rule-out having her moonlight as an assassin for the Atlas Empire or The Ten Rings. Then again, when Deadpool 3 shoots they’ll have full access to The Hand again.
OMEGA RED: Interestingly enough, Matsu’o Tsurayaba also connects to the next mutant.
Arkady Gregorivich Rossovich aka Omega Red originally had a bigger in Deadpool 2 as there was concept artwork making the rounds suggesting he was going to be a bruiser like The Juggernaut but he did briefly “cameo” in the mutant prison scenes. I’m not sure anyone would have noticed unless has had pointed it out and means the villain could get a second chance in the MCU.
In the comics, Arkady was a failed super-soldier experiment cooked-up by the Soviet Union and is considered to be one of the most dangerous mutants, giving Wolverine a run for his money. He’s worked has muscle for criminal syndicates like The Hand and feels within the wheelhouse of both Wolverine and Deadpool. I’m not shy about my desire to get this character on the big screen.
Since he’s Russian it could be a good excuse to connect him to Colossus’ time there.
X-23: Ryan Reynolds has been desperate to make his Wolverine vs Deadpool film, while Hugh Jackman isn’t likely return to the role anytime soon, Marvel is going to recast the role for the MCU making that a possibility in the future.
There is zero sign that Wolverine will be ready to go for Deadpool 3 but there is an established character they might want to use in the meantime that could make for an excellent surrogate, X-23.
We’ve seen Marvel Studios give second chances to J.K. Simmons as J. Jonah Jameson and Jamie Foxx as Electro for their Spider-Man franchise, so there is some hope they could soft-reboot Laura Kinney aka X-23 while keeping Dafne Keen in that role for their X-Men/Deadpool franchises. It’s a bit of stretch to think they’d ask Keen to return but if they’re unable to use the new Wolverine, X-23 would be an excellent surrogate as her origin has already been covered in James Mangold’s Logan and you can fill in the blanks later.
MISTER SINISTER: There had been some suggestions that Sinister was going to be part of the never-made Gambit film starring Channing Tatum and he certainly is an untapped X-Men baddie that Marvel Studios could use for multiple films. He essentially could become the less conflicted than Magneto and take secure reigns as the main villain of the X-Men franchise before they attempt to bring in Apocalypse or others.
You could easily have Sinister, a former human geneticist turned mutant, be one of the people behind “the Workshop” from the first film and we ultimately see what has happened to those collared mutants that were sold-off as weapons on the black market. Possibly having him as a puppet master of a character like Sugar Man leading to Sinister being a bigger threat in other X-Men films.
ALPHA FLIGHT: Wade is Canadian and there happens to be Canadian Government sanctioned group of mutant heroes called Alpha Flight that have been long over due for a live-action adaptation. Adding Department H to the MCU could be one way to give a better origin to Wolverine and potentially expand the X-Men universe by including the obscure Canadian mutants. I’ve been championing that Alpha Flight be given their own Disney+ series as there is enough there to deserve a series over a feature film. Wilson is eventually going to get on Department H’s radar and could attempt to recruit him to disastrous results, they’re also goofy enough that they’d add to the comedic nature of the film.
CABLE & DOMINO: I’m still of the belief that Marvel will ultimately keep actors like Josh Brolin and Zazie Beetz in their respective franchise roles while potentiality giving their character designs a soft-reboot to look a little more like their comic book counterparts. They’re lower on the list because I think it’s less of a worry that they’ll get tossed. Although, hiring new actors wouldn’t be shocking given that Marvel can replace them if they chose to do so.
There are now plenty of examples of actors playing dual roles in the MCU and having Brolin return to the Cable part after playing Thanos wouldn’t be the strangest move they could make.
I’m sure we’ll start learning more about Deadpool 3 once Marvel Studios does an official panel for it.
We learned yesterday from Deadline that Marvel Studios are finally moving forward on Deadpool 3 almost a year Ryan Reynolds announced publicly that development started at Marvel. While the report mentioned how closely Ryan would be working with the studio as he reprises the role of Wade Wilson and seemingly will keep his position as part of the creative team while two creatives are missing from the report entirely (“team Deadpool” is mentioned) questioning their involvement.
Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese, the screenwriters and executive producers on the previous two Deadpool films are absent from the article announcing that The Molyneux Sisters (Bob’s Burgers) would be tackling the Deadpool 3 script.
Have they’ve exited the project?
The two had been originally set to write Deadpool 3 when the project was at 20th Century Fox and post-merger met with Marvel Studios over the summer of 2019 with Ryan. There had been an assumption they had been chosen to write the outline/story for the sequel or at the very least help produce given their success with the X-Men character. However, their names don’t appear in the Deadline report or in the follow-ups from The Hollywood Reporter and Variety.
The screenwriting duo had been tapped by Disney to pen Pirates of The Caribbean 6 (a reboot) before the script changed hands to Ted Elliot and Craig Mazin. They had also reunited with Ryan for Michael Bay’s Netflix film 6 Underground and a mature take on Clue at 20th Century Studios.
We can’t really ascertain why the pair weren’t mentioned in the article, however, this wouldn’t be the first time a key creative walked away from a Deadpool sequel. You might remember that Tim Miller was all set and ready to direct Deadpool 2 only to exit over “creative differences” which led him to team-up with James Cameron for Terminator: Dark Fate and was replaced with David Leitch. Speaking of David, it’s mentioned that while Marvel is open to him returning as director they’re realistic about his busy schedule and will likely end up hiring a new director.
It’s unclear if they’re even producing or consulting on the film. Hopefully, there will be some clarity in the coming weeks given how much they contributed to the success of the franchise.
I guess the talk of Deadpool 3 never coming together at Marvel Studios was just a fevered dream of co-creator Rob Liefeld.
Deadline reports that Marvel Studios has tapped The Molyneux Sisters (Bob’s Burgers, The Great North) to write the third installment and would be a sign that the sequel could be the first official X-Men film produced/released by the studio since the merger brought the film/television rights to Disney.
Sources tell Deadline that Wendy Molyneux and Lizzie Molyneux-Loeglin to write Deadpool 3 with Reynolds set to reprise his role as wise-cracking superhero.
As we’ve been saying for ages via quotes from both Disney and Marvel brass that they still seem to be keen to keep the film R-rated. Deadline reaffirms this, yet again.
Besides Reynolds return, there is so many factors being worked but sources say the film is still expected to be rated R like the previous two installments.
Ryan Reynolds is set to reprise the role of Wade Wilson but this would be the first film without the involvement of Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese, who tackled the last two movies when they were made at 20th Century Fox pre-merger. We don’t know officially if other cast members like Zazie Beetz or Josh Brolin will carry over their roles like Reynolds.
It’s unclear if David Leitch’s schedule will allow him to return for a third installment, but I wouldn’t be shocked if they considered a new director in all honesty given how many projects Leitch is juggling currently.
It sounds like with screenwriters set that we could see the sequel arrive at the earliest in 2023 with production taking place in 2022 if a script is completed in a timely fashion.
THE RONIN 