In 2018 Josh Brolin got to steal the show in not one, but two major superhero blockbusters – the first as Thanos in AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR and the second as the gruff, but still profane Cable in DEADPOOL 2. This year his time as the first came to an end in AVENGERS: ENDGAME (or did it?!), and as for the future of Cable, not to mention his new red companion, Deadpool, Brolin is a bit more uncertain about what the future holds.
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Late last year the merger between Disney and 20th Century Fox was approved, meaning Cable, Deadpool, and all the other mutants would now be under the Disney umbrella. What that means for the characters, and what many see as their inevitable inclusion into Marvel Studio’s cinematic universe, no one can say. That goes especially for Brolin, who revealed at ACE Comic-Con in Seattle (via IndieWire) that he has been calling Marvel to ask what the heck is going on with his character, but has yet to get any solid answers.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen. I’m actually, I’ve been calling them, like, ‘What’s the deal with Cable, man?’ Seriously, 100 percent serious. They’re figuring it out. It’s a big world now, it just got much, much bigger. So who knows.”
The same could perhaps be said of lots of new characters Disney and Marvel Studios have acquired, which includes the X-Men, the Fantastic Four and more. No concrete plans have been revealed for what they planned for these new heroes, which could be anything now that DARK PHOENIX brought the X-Men to the end of their run with 20th Century Fox, and into an unknown world with Disney. But perhaps Disney is approaching that team more cautiously than ever, now that PHOENIX is an official box office bomb, having amassed less than $70 million domestically after being in theaters almost a full month.
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Deadpool and Cable are in a special scenario compared to other characters, in that their movies have been lauded for embracing an R-rating in a crowd of PG-13 summer movies, with the filmmakers and star Ryan Reynolds taking advantage of all the blood, sex and dirty words they can. At first, that seemed to conflict with he family-friendly disposition of Disney, but CEO Bob Iger assured back in February that future movies would remain R-rated, saying “there’s certainly popularity" with those movies. He continued, saying it’s all a matter of finding a way to “carefully brand” the movies so that family audiences don’t confuse them with other Marvel movies, which never push beyond PG-13.
What is of note is the fact that when a schedule was released for all the major Disney and Fox titles on the way over the next few years, nothing on the list hinted at movies featuring mutant heroes. We got word about plenty of new AVATAR movies, KINGSMAN movies, and more STAR WARS, but as IndieWire notes, three slots for "Untitled Fox-Marvel" movies in June 2020, October 2020 and March 2021 have been cleared. Given the quick turn around between DEADPOOL 1 and DEADPOOL 2, we can assume one of those slots was probably for a new Deadpool movie or even the planned X-FORCE movie from Drew Goddard. We do know the long-delayed NEW MUTANTS is on the way April 3, 2020, but other than that, we have no clue what's going on with the characters Disney acquired.
While this may seem a bit disconcerting to fans of the DEADPOOL movies, at the end of the day, it helps to look at what Brolin said in the quote: "They're figuring it out." Disney and Marvel Studios getting these characters is a big, complicated deal, and so trying to decide where to place them and how to continue may take some time. So while we're all itching for new movies we have to practice some patience and wait and see what the future holds.