You might think that with 20th Century Fox going through a bit of minor turmoil with “Deadpool 2” following the exit of director Tim Miller and composer Junkie XL, they might be reluctant to talk to the trades. However, the folks at The Hollywood Reporter got some people inside the walls to talk about the studio’s superhero slate and what they’ve got on the horizon.
When it comes the “Deadpool” franchise, Fox is still confident, and is apparently already planning “Deadpool 3,” which will bring in X-Force, which is absolutely no surprise. Franchise star and now-powerful creative voice Ryan Reynolds made it clear earlier this year that the superhero team is very important to him.
“There’s so much material to mine in just the X-Men universe. In the future, if we’re doing a bunch more ‘Deadpool’ movies, we’re really going to explore the X-Men a lot. We’ll see. And maybe X-Force — X-Force is my priority. I really want to get that in,” the actor said in February.
However, the biggest question facing Fox is what to do with X-Men now that the contracts with Jennifer Lawrence, Michael Fassbender, James McAvoy and Nicholas Hoult are finished, and the last entry, “X-Men: Apocalypse” was a disappointment. Well, the studio apparently plans to “reconfigure” the property, with franchise regular Simon Kinberg writing the script. Bryan Singer‘s time with the franchise is done, but somewhat oddly, the studio is holding the faint hope of recruiting their main stars again (though with the knowledge that they simply might be priced too high at this point to make it worthwhile).
Meanwhile, the on-again, off-again “Gambit” with Channing Tatum is currently on hold until he finishes shooting Steven Soderbergh‘s “Logan Lucky,” while “The New Mutants” could possibly get rolling next spring. But there’s one property that’s curiously not mentioned at all: “Fantastic Four.”
As we all know, Josh Trank‘s reboot flopped hard, and yet Kinberg has been very clear he still wants to make a follow-up, and some of the cast members have been receptive about reprising their roles. Is “Fantastic Four” really damaged so much to not even warrant the discussion? Perhaps, and given the money involved just to make one of those movies, Fox is right to be wary. But it’s not hard to imagine a better movie with that cast involved, just with a different director.
“Deadpool 2” will start shooting in January, and the next Fox superhero flick to hit the big screen will be “Logan” on March 3, 2017.