‘Deadpool 2’ officially confirmed; Tim Miller to helm the highest grossing R-rated movie sequel

Even before the ‘merc with a mouth’ set his foot in the cinema halls, the news about him getting a sequel was greenlit by the studio. Yes, we are talking about Deadpool and what’s new is the fact that Fox officially confirmed the news that Deadpool 2 will be helmed by the same director Tim Miller and will star Ryan Reynolds. The news was confirmed at CinemaCon 2016 during the 20th Century Fox presentation, by studio co-chairman’s Stacey Snider and Jim Gianopulos.

As reported earlier, Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, who wrote Deadpool, are writing the script for the sequel. And as we saw in the end credits of Deadpool, Cable will join him for the sequel. In an earlier interaction, Deadpool screenwriter Rhett Reese said that he believes Cable’s presence in the sequel will make for some interesting interaction with the title character. “There’s a lot of fun in that he’s very serious and he does take on more serious weighty issues than Deadpool’s used to taking on, so I think there’s a juxtaposition there that can be fun,” he explained. “We had a lot of fun with Colossus in the first movie, just by virtue of him being a foil to Deadpool, being a goody two-shoes and a straight shooter and Deadpool being irreverent. And I think Cable offers us the opportunity to provide another really cool, different foil for Deadpool.”

Deadpool Cable

Along with Cable, there’s a slight chance that we might get to witness the web slinger Spider-Man. This comes from the press day for Fox’s Deadpool Blu-ray release where director Tim Miller and producer Simon Kinberg talked about ‘possibly’ getting Spider-Man to meet his biggest fan: Deadpool. Miller said, “Simon and I have been trying to build bridges.”

Though Fox doesn’t own the rights of the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man as it’s with Sony, when asked if it’s possible for a crossover, Kinberg laughed, “I would love to see it. Both of us are close with (Marvel’s) Kevin (Feige), we respect and love Kevin. If it were even remotely possible, we will find a way ’cause we’d would love to see it.” However, at this point in time, he went on to say that he doesn’t know if this would be possible.

Whether we get to see Spider-Man or no in the sequel is a question for some other day but the sequel to Deadpool is enough to make fans go crazy. It’s highly commendable that Tim Miller managed to deliver this movie at such a tight budget of $58 million. Though the film went on to break records at the box office to become the highest grossing R-rated film of all time by earning $757 million, co-screenwriter Paul Wernick promised that a bigger sequel does not necessarily indicate a bigger budget.

“We don’t want to make a $200 million epic superhero Deadpool movie. We want to make the $50 million Deadpool sequel. And I think people tapped into this being a character piece, you know? This was a movie about a broken character, a broken guy who’s just trying to make his way in the world, and I think we’re gonna continue that moving forward.” According to Wernick, making a flashy follow-up is not the right avenue, as “it goes against who the character is.”

With Tim Miller on board, that shouldn’t be a tough job as he was previously an animator and visual effects specialist. So, he knows how to utilise his resources to its full potential which he successfully did for his feature film directorial debut – Deadpool.

20th Century Fox had previously announced that they reserved the dates of 6 October, 2017 and 12 January, 2018 for untitled Marvel films and seems like Deadpool 2 will most likely take one of those slots.