As we all know by now, “Deadpool & Wolverine,” set for July 26, is Marvel Studios only film for 2024. Speaking at a Morgan Stanley event yesterday, Disney Chief Bob Iger predicted the film will be “one of the most successful Marvel movies we’ve had in a long time.” Clearly, the hype for the film is rising.
And it’s being further stoked by a new interview with Karan Soni, the actor who has played the Indian taxi cab-driving character Dopinder in all three installments of the “Deadpool” franchise so far.
In an interview with Variety, Soni teased the many already-expected cameos in the Shawn Levy-directed film. “This new MCU version is ultra-secretive,” he said, suggesting fans aren’t ready for what they are in store for. “There are a lot of surprises,” and then added with a cherry on top, “Let’s just say a lot of people traveled to London.”
Shawn Levy has also teased many cameos, and star Ryan Reynolds has already asked fans to stop posting set photo leaks that have included past “X-Men” characters like Toad and Sabertooth. “Deadpool & Wolverine” is believed to be a type of goodbye to the 20th Century Fox era of Marvel superhero films— “X-Men,” “Fantastic Four,” “New Mutants,” etc.— and it’s been heavily rumored that many of those actors may appear again. As the character Professor X, Patrick Stewart has admitted he’s had conversations about joining the film, and he already reprised that role in “Doctor Strange And The Multiverse of Madness”). You could speculate endlessly, obviously, but we’ll leave that for another day.
Perhaps less shocking is how Soni says he’s not surprised that Hugh Jackman is reprising his iconic Wolverine role in the film because Reynolds had been plotting the move as far back as “Deadpool 2” (2018), if not longer.
“When we were making the second one, Ryan was plotting back then,” he recalled. “I remember him spilling that at lunch one day that he had started a conversation with Hugh. I remember saying, ‘People are going to flip out!’ Then, the studio got sold to Disney, and a lot of other stuff happened. But, of course, Ryan followed through because it was dream casting.”
Not much was known about the plot of “Deadpool & Wolverine” until the teaser trailer was released during the Superbowl, revealing Deadpool recruited by the TVA (Time Variance Authority) seen in the “Loki” series in order to fix some kind of time anomaly (presumably anyhow).
A recently revealed Japanese logline, “That f*cking irresponsible hero Deadpool will change the history of the MCU with Wolverine,” suggested much of the same. So far, the only confirmed cameo, other than what’s been revealed in set photos, is Jennifer Garner, who will reprise her role as superhero Elektra nearly 20 years after last appearing in the role.
“Deadpool & Wolverine” is due in theaters July 26 via Marvel Studios.
