This could be the thing that Marvel fans have been waiting for since the very first Iron Man movie...
While most of this part of the world was sleeping soundly, Ryan Reynolds was dropping bombs on the superhero landscape, revealing that Hugh Jackman will be returning as Wolverine for the upcoming
Deadpool 3.
You can read all about Reynolds and Jackman's shared revelation
here, but what we want to focus on right now is the release date.
6 September 2024.
Yes, that is quite a ways off. Two years from now, and SIX years since Deadpool 2.
Between now and then, we've got the rest of Marvel Phase Four to finish out, including the remainder of She-Hulk: Attorney At law, then Werewolf by Night and the Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special (all on Disney+), as well as this November's big screen release of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.
Then we move on to Phase Five, which features no less than SEVEN shows on Disney+ (including Loki Season 2, Agatha: Coven Of Chaos, Daredevil: Born Again and Secret Invasion), as well as the cinematic release of Ant-Man 3, Guardians of the Galaxy 3, Captain Marvel 2, Blade and Captain America 4.
Phase Five will end in July 2024 with Thunderbolts, led by Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), and then we get a two month break before Phase Six kicks off with Deadpool 3.
And what arrives next in cinemas, just two months after Deadpool 3? Fantastic Four.
And who tweeted a very cryptic tweet late last night upon the announcement of Deadpool 3...?
https://twitter.com/johnkrasinski/status/1574872613524054018?s=20&t=fJKmS_5arvjXk4suG8Z4iw
Yep, John Krasinski, who recently played Fantastic Four leader Reed Richards in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.
His tweet could be alluding to the fact that he is going to appear in Deadpool 3 is some capacity, or that the events of Deadpool 3 and Fantastic Four are going to be somehow interlinked - a la an incursion, aka the total destruction of two alternative realities that collide into each other.
Or it could be Krasinski is hinting that he's going to be directing an MCU entry very soon. He is the man behind the very good A Quiet Place movies, and this interaction with Shawn Levy seems to be teasing the directing angle:
https://twitter.com/johnkrasinski/status/1574896102008147968?s=20&t=fJKmS_5arvjXk4suG8Z4iw
Levy is
directing Deadpool 3, and he's previously worked with Reynolds (on Free Guy and The Adam Project) and Jackman (on Real Steel). And Krasinski also cameoed in Free Guy, so they're all pals in here!
There are still seven more slots within Phase Six that don't have movies and shows confirmed yet, so Krasinski could be directing any one of those.
But aside from that, it is interesting that Deadpool 3 and Fantastic Four are kicking off the end of this Multiverse Saga.
Phases One to Three were the Infinity Saga, culminating with Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame, and the same thing is going to happen here with 2025's Avengers: The Kang Dynasty and Avengers: Secret Wars bringing an end to Phases Four through Six.
Remember that bit in Multiverse of Madness when Strange "falls" through multiple different realities? Yeah, we should fully expect Deadpool and Wolverine to probably do the same thing. A buddy road-trip, but across all plains of existence, which will finally merge the X-Men and the Marvel movie universes.
And the timing makes perfect sense.
Due to a number of still-standing contractual issues, some by the "older" X-Men (Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, etc.), and some by the "younger" X-Men (Michael Fassbender, James McAvoy, etc.), Marvel can't make a new standalone X-Men until 2025.
We've had alternative reality versions of some of the characters sprinkled throughout the MCU recently - including Patrick Stewart as Professor X in the Doctor Strange sequel, and Evan Peters as Quicksilver (sort of) in WandaVision - but that has pretty much as far as they've been allowed to go with the X-Men characters so far.
So this final FINAL farewell to Wolverine in Deadpool 3 at the tail-end of 2024 will also likely double up as an introduction to the new X-Men cast and characters, which will get their own movie in the very next year.
If you thought Avengers: Endgame was a lot of characters, 2025 will bring us a movie with all of the Marvel characters, all of the X-Men characters, the Fantastic Four, Deadpool, Daredevil, Blade, and plenty more still unannounced besides.
It's going to be bonkers. We can't wait.
