Ryan Reynolds has responded to speculation that his Marvel character Deadpool will feature in a forthcoming Avengers sequel.
Marvel’s Avengers films have brought together characters from across the various films of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) franchise, though Deadpool/Wade Wilson (Reynolds) has never appeared in one.
With the Avengers set to return with two further films – Avengers: Secret Wars and Avengers: Doomsday – it had been rumoured that Reynolds’s “Merc with a mouth” would feature.
Reynolds first played a version of Deadpool in the 2009 movie X-Men Origins: Wolverine. He later starred as a different, wise-cracking version of the character in Deadpool (2016), Deadpool 2 (2018) and Deadpool & Wolverine (2024), the last of which grossed $1.34bn at the global box office, making it the second biggest film of 2024.
In an interview with Variety, Reynolds was asked about the possibility of Deadpool returning in an Avengers film.
“I’m not even being cagey,” he said, before laughing. “We’ll see what happens there.
“Deadpool & Wolverine wasn’t meant to be a commercial for another movie,” he added. “It wasn’t meant to be any of that stuff. And, I think I get a great deal of joy making a movie like that.
“But honestly, right in this moment, I have no idea if I’ll ever wear that Deadpool suit again – I hope I do – but I don’t know. Right now’s the time to just kind of hang it up for a bit and see what happens next.”
Until 2019, the rights to Deadpool were owned by Fox, and existed separately to the MCU, which is produced by Disney.
However, the 2019 merger of Fox and Disney saw the Marvel character brought into the same corporate umbrella, and Deadpool & Wolverine established Reynolds’s antihero in the same universe as the Avengers.
Watch Apple TV+ free for 7 days
New subscribers only. £8.99/mo. after free trial. Plan auto-renews until cancelled
Watch Apple TV+ free for 7 days
New subscribers only. £8.99/mo. after free trial. Plan auto-renews until cancelled
The two forthcoming Avengers films were originally intended to revolve around the superhero team’s battle against Kang (Jonathan Majors), a multiversal villain who was introduced in the Disney+ series Loki and the film Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.
However, Majors departed the franchise after being found guilty of misdemeanour counts of assault and harassment.
It was announced earlier this year that Robert Downey Jr, who previously played Tony Stark/Iron Man in nine MCU films, would be returning to the franchise to play Doctor Doom.
The forthcoming Avengers films will feature Downey’s Doom as the main villain.