Don't Expect 'Deadpool 2' To Be Overcrowded Or Overly Expensive

After the failure of Fantastic Four, I imagined 20th Century Fox would've thought twice about working on a sequel before their newest comic book adaptation, Deadpool, even opened in theaters. A Deadpool sequel was reported on before opening day, but this time, the studio's confidence paid off. The comic book character was a huge hit for audiences and critics, having made over $300 million worldwide thus far.

A Deadpool 2 will happen, and screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick are already discussing it.

The screenwriting duo are writing the sequel. The two worked on the first film for around seven years, so it's no surprise they'd want to return to a world they're passionate about. We already know the character Cable, which Stephen Lang is already campaigning for (how often do these campaigns work?), will appear in the sequel, and Reese and Miller discussed the advantages of including him with Collider. Here's what Reese had to say:

I think there's a real conceptual difference between taking other characters and big things and bringing them into Deadpool's reasonably small, gritty world and the opposite, taking Deadpool and placing him among big ensembles who are fighting aliens or in the future where he and Cable are doing something in the future. I think if Cable and Deadpool team up, it will likely be in Deadpool's world. That allows us to control that budgetary thing a little more; I don't think we're gonna see Deadpool and Cable on some far-flung planet 300 years from now because I just feel like that's gonna be expensive, A, and will also take away from the relatability of Deadpool. I think at this stage in the game it's about taking other people and dropping them into this reasonably insular, gritty, urban, dark world of Deadpool.

Right now, it's hard to imagine Deadpool fighting alongside the X-Men. The tones of these two universes are wildly different, even though they happen to take place in the same universe. The X-Men films are also much larger endeavors, and a part of Deadpool's charm is its less is more approach. Wernick stresses not to expect an unnecessarily expensive Deadpool sequel:

We don't want $150 million to go make the next movie, that's not Deadpool. Deadpool doesn't lift cities up into the air or battle aliens coming down to earth, that's just not Deadpool. So we're happy in that little small budget range that they have us in; we don't wanna blow this next one out.

Another question: How will the events of the X-Men movies effect Deadpool? How many X-Men characters can they incorporate? Is that something the writers need to consider? Reese says that's not the case:

It's a legal list but it's also a creative list, because X-Men: Apocalypse has plans, they have plans for future X-Men movies, and we also have timeline issues. We have actors who are now playing the parts who are a younger generation, we have the older actors—where does Deadpool's timeline fit in with the others? These are all things that Simon Kinberg worries about for the moment instead of us. Colossus was easy to do because he's chrome and there was no live-action actor playing him, Negasonic was easy to do because she's a very minor character, but if you start talking about Professor X or Beast you do start running into timeline issues and we're gonna need guidelines on that.

The screenwriters also told Collider they want to keep things simple with the sequel. Structurally, Deadpool has a refreshingly streamlined plot, with zero bloat and no narrative tangents. The revenge and love story was all the film needed. As for what we really need to see in the sequel, it's Weasel (T.J. Miller) winning something. Like Weasel says in the film, he never wins anything.