Following the release of Logan in early 2017, the public spent half a decade believing that this movie was the last time they’d see Hugh Jackman playing Wolverine. Then came the big day last September when it was announced that Jackman would don the adamantium claws one more time for Deadpool 3. So although he and Ryan Reynolds briefly shared some screen time in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, we’re now getting the proper Wolverine/Deadpool team-up that so many people have asked for, but Reynolds has now acknowledged that bringing back Jackman’s Wolverine will be a special kind of “tightrope walk.”
Although Wolverine and Deadpool both share the ability of a healing factor, personality-wise, they couldn’t be more different, with the former being largely serious and the latter never hesitating to crack jokes or drop sarcastic remarks. That’s what makes bringing these two together so appealing, but Ryan Reynolds did tell The Wrap that nailing Deadpool 3’s tone will be a tricky feat. In his words:
I think it’s a tightrope walk. I mean most of these movies are always a tightrope walk of tone, so in this instance, though, you have a collision of two pretty iconic characters that exist in the Marvel Ancillary Universe [laughs] — we’re in the Marvel Cinematic Universe at this point.
Though Ryan Reynolds has debunked that Deadpool 3 will be titled Wolverine and Deadpool, from what little information has been shared so far, it sounds like Wolverine will basically being sharing co-lead duties with Wade Wilson, as opposed to being a supporting player on the level of someone like Brianna Hildebrand’s Negasonic Teenage Warhead or Josh Brolin’s Cable. So although Deadpool 3 obviously needs to be packed with comedy since the Merc with the Mouth is involved, it will be indeed be interesting to see how the threequel handles that tonal balance.
Nevertheless, Ryan Reynolds promised that Deadpool 3 would stay true to these versions of Deadpool and Wolverine, as opposed to drastically altering the characters. As Reynolds put it:
It’s really kind of finding a way to service both of these characters that feels extraordinarily authentic to each of them, and I think these two wrongs actually will make a right in a pretty great way.
It still hasn’t been clarified whether the Wolverine we’ll see in Deadpool 3 is the main version from prior to the events of Logan or a variant from another universe, but either way, what unfolds in this upcoming Marvel movie won’t affect how Logan ends. Hugh Jackman said at the end of December that after his run on Broadway’s The Music Man is finished, he’ll spend the next six months getting back into Wolverine shape, and this time he has “the added incentive of taking Ryan Reynolds out each day.” Behind the scenes, Shawn Levy is directing Deadpool 3, making this his third collaboration with Reynolds after Free Guy and The Adam Project, and Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick are back on scripting duties after Bob’s Burgers duo Wendy Molyneux and Lizzie Molyneux-Logelin wrote an earlier draft.
Deadpool 3 is slated for theatrical release on November 8, 2024. If you’d like to stream the previous two Deadpool movies before then, or rewatch all the Marvel movies in order, break out your Disney+ subscription.
