Deadpool & Wolverine - Release Date, Cast, Director, And More Info

Are you ready to accept Wade Wilson as your Lord and Savior? We've come a long way from Ryan Reynolds' Deadpool getting his mouth sewn shut for reasons only "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" director Gavin Hood can fathom (and even he would probably just shrug if you asked him). Now, 15 years after the Merc with a Mouth made his inauspicious live-action debut, the character is officially joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe thanks to "Deadpool & Wolverine," a film that sees him reunited with his former costar Hugh Jackman as Wolverine. The latter had ostensibly hung up his claws for good after starring in James Mangold's elegiac "Logan," but the chance for a proper team-up with Reynolds (plus the opportunity to finally don Wolvie's fabled yellow super suit) was just too much for Jackman to pass on. That and Disney surely unloaded a dump truck's worth of money into his driveway. No judgment, Hugh!

With the superhero movie renaissance threatening to wind down and even the once-unstoppable MCU starting to crumble, it now falls to "Deadpool & Wolverine" to right this ship before it's too late. (I mean, there's also "Madame Web," but even that movie's early defenders aren't counting on it bucking this trend.) And while the first two "Deadpool" films were colossal hits at the box office, it's been a long six years since "Deadpool 2" came out ... and as we saw in 2023, having Marvel in your corner no longer guarantees success in this day and age. But far from buckling under the pressure, "Deadpool & Wolverine" appears to be leaning into the challenge and even incorporating it into its meta proceedings (in true Wade Wilson fashion).

So, with all that out of the way, let's recount what we know about the film so far.

If you're feeling a little burnt out on the MCU right now, rejoice! "Deadpool & Wolverine" is the only Marvel Studios film scheduled to open in 2024. That has less to do with the House of Ideas slowing things down of its own volition and more to do with last year's dual WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes forcing Disney to overhaul its release slate. (Who could've possibly foreseen that refusing to hash out a fair agreement with their artists for six months would've cost the major studios so dearly? Not Disney CEO Bob Iger, apparently.)

Setting aside what got us to this point, the Mouse House now has a chance to remind everyone what they enjoyed about the MCU in the first place, starting with "Deadpool & Wolverine." The film was still mid-production when the strikes got underway, but it was able to quickly wrap things up once shooting resumed and is now slated to hit theaters in the middle of summer on July 26, 2024. That's almost exactly a year after Barbenheimer took the box office by storm in 2023, which certainly portends well for Reynolds and co.

One of the major factors that undoubtedly contributed to "The Marvels" crashing and burning at the box office last year was that it tied together threads from the Disney+ series "WandaVision" and "Ms. Marvel" with those from "Captain Marvel" ("Secret Invasion" who?), which was great for those who tuned into those shows but a turnoff for casual viewers who are over doing additional homework for the MCU's films. So how, then, can "Deadpool & Wolverine" keep the MCU's overarching connectivity going without falling into the same trap? Well, by the look of things, it's actually come up with an ingenious solution.

The film sees Wade Wilson being recruited by the Time Variance Authority (TVA) from the "Loki" show for a mission of the utmost importance involving the multiverse. Except, instead of Owen Wilson's jetski-loving Agent Mobius or any of the other fan-favorite TVA employees from "Loki," it's a brand-new MCU character known as Paradox who brings Deadpool into the fold. Not only that, Wade himself is a newcomer to the larger MCU (his fourth wall-breaking quips aside), allowing him to act as a surrogate for audiences who haven't kept up with the constant flow of MCU stuff since "Endgame." Meanwhile, those pesky connections to other Marvel movies will largely take on the forms of references to and characters from Fox's "X-Men" films and even Marvel adaptations like "Elektra," most of which will be played more for laughs than continuity by the sound of it.

Multiverses make it easy to resurrect a character who previously kicked the bucket without having to bend over backward, which can either be a good or bad thing depending on how that power is wielded (and if the superhero genre has taught us anything, it's that someone will always abuse their power). So it is with "Deadpool & Wolverine," a film that brings Hugh Jackman back as Wolverine despite his brutal demise at the end of "Logan." Is this version of Logan an alternate universe variant of the one we know? A younger iteration from Fox's "X-Men" movies' timeline? (Let's not even try to untangle that twisted web.) It's the big question on everybody's mind, which of course means Jackman and the gang are staying infuriatingly tight-lipped about it.

All we really know for certain is that Reynolds and Jackman will be joined in the film's cast by numerous actors from the first two "Deadpool" movies, including Morena Baccarin (Vanessa), Karan Soni (Dopinder), Leslie Uggams (Blind Al), Brianna Hildebrand (Negasonic Teenage Warhead), Stefan Kapičić (Colossus), Shioli Kutsuna (Yukio), and Rob Delaney (Peter). Gone are "Deadpool 2" stars Josh Brolin (Cable) and Zazie Beetz (Domino) for plot reasons and T.J. Miller (Weasel) for being an a**hole reasons. Joining the party is Tom Wambsgans himself, Matthew Macfadyen, as Paradox and Emma Corrin ("A Murder at the End of the World") as the film's mystery villain. All those other cast members you've heard about are technically only rumored for the time being, although certain ones are looking pretty plausible from where we're standing.

After years of trying on different directors for size, Reynolds has finally found one he's clearly comfortable with in the shape of Shawn Levy. The "Stranger Things" producer got his start making family-friendly fare like "Cheaper by the Dozen" and the "Night at the Museum" films before hooking up with Reynolds on his sci-fi tentpoles "Freey Guy" and "The Adam Project." He's also got a history with Jackman, having previously directed him in the 2011 boxing robots picture "Real Steel," and nearly teamed up with him on several follow-up projects (not counting Jackman's uncredited cameo in "Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb" and his brief voice role in "Free Guy").

Levy, for what it's worth, is a capable journeyman, though he's yet to really establish a distinct style or set of interests as a filmmaker. To that end, everyone knows that Reynolds is the true auteur of the "Deadpool" movies at this point, so it's less a matter of whether Levy can bring something unexpected to the table here and more one of him being able to execute Reynolds' latest irreverent vision.

In addition to serving as a producer, "Deadpool 2" and now "Deadpool & Wolverine" have seen Reynolds slide into the role of co-writer alongside franchise staples Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick. Also lending a hand on the script is Zeb Wells, the prolific comic book writer who worked on the MCU's "She-Hulk" series and reportedly made uncredited contributions to "The Marvels." He's also infamous for wrecking Spider-Man's love life in the "Amazing Spider-Man" comic books, although his work on the well-regarded "Hellions" comics "fits right in tonally with a Deadpool story" (as noted by /Film's Devin Meenan), and he's unlikely to make any creative decisions that aren't at the behest of the film's higher-ups.

Speaking of the devil in the baseball cap, Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige joins Reynolds, Jackman, Levy, Reese, and Wernick as a credited producer on "Deadpool & Wolverine," as do multiple veterans from Fox's "X-Men" films (including Lauren Shuler Donner and Simon Kinberg). Again, though, it's Reynolds and his longtime collaborators who are really steering the ship here, so it's best to not read too much into all this.

The first "Deadpool & Wolverine" trailer dropped during Super Bowl LVIII and it was a smashing success. How big a success, you ask? Enough for Disney and Marvel Studios to claim it was the "most viewed movie trailer of all time" in a press release. Sure, their math is more than a little suspect, but which studio isn't tipping the scale in their favor when it comes to bragging rights about stuff like trailer views these days? However you choose to parse it, this bodes well for not just the film but also the odds of it becoming the hit that Disney and Marvel desperately need right now. You can practically hear the sighs of relief their executives are making as we speak.

As for the actual trailer, it's a strong tease overall, revealing just enough about the story to get the gears in your brain whirling before ending with Wolverine's silhouette as he and Deadpool basically re-enact the scene from "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" where Steve Martin gets hoisted off the ground by his, ahem, nether regions (only with Wolvie using his claws). That's all you need for a tone-setter like this.

In case it wasn't obvious from the trailer (in which Wade makes a pegging joke), "Deadpool & Wolverine" will be the first MCU film to release with an R rating, just like the "Deadpool" films before it. Levy, for his part, has dabbled in adult fare before with the workplace comedy "The Internship" — which was watered down to a PG-13, much to Levy's regret — and the familial dramedy "This Is Where I Leave You," itself a much softer R-rated offering than the Merc with a Mouth's past endeavors. Needless to say, though, with Reynolds, Reese, and Wernick by his side, Levy should have little problem navigating these newfound waters.

An R rating doth not an excellent movie make, of course, nor does it guarantee "Deadpool & Wolverine" will shake up the MCU creatively the way folks are hoping. It is, nonetheless, a step in an encouraging direction.