With Fox continuing to lay the building blocks for their X-Men cinematic universe, one of the most important pieces of the puzzle appears to be Deadpool 2. After the wildly successful first film, expectations for the sequel to deliver are huge, but more importantly, perhaps, is its role in the lead up to X-Force. Given that both the Merc with a Mouth and Cable are set to feature heavily in the aforementioned flick, David Leitch’s upcoming sequel will no doubt be planting many seeds for it, and as such, seeing who Fox chooses to play the time travelling mutant promises to be quite exciting.
It’s a casting hunt that’s sparked more rumors than we can count, with far too many actors finding themselves linked to the part over the past few months. Stephen Lang, Russell Crowe, Pierce Brosnan, David Harbour – the list goes on. Hell, the promo even teased Nathan Fillion as potentially being cast in the role. And while the studio has already located an actress to bring Domino to life, they still remain quiet on the Cable front. For now, at least. That’s because if writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick are to be believed, we’ll be getting an update “very soon.”
While speaking with ComicBook.com to promote their new film, Life, the scribes teased that they’ve got a “short, short list” of actors that they’re looking at for Cable, before mentioning that “an announcement will be coming very soon. We’re gonna go into production in the next couple of months and cast announcements will be coming fast and furious.”
With Deadpool 2 set to begin shooting this summer, it really can’t be too much longer now before we get an actor for the role, so what Reese and Wernick say makes sense. They also mentioned that they’re looking for “someone with a great deadpan thing where they can react to someone who’s being crazy” and also “physically imposing and able to emote.” Finally, the pair touched on the character’s role in X-Force, saying they need someone who can “command a franchise.”
“They’ve got X-Force coming up. Cable is head of the X-Force so it’s someone who can also command a movie franchise. It’s a tall task and we have been on the hunt for a very long time. I think once it’s announced, as we get closer, people are gonna go crazy for it,” said Wernick.
That’s not the first time that we’ve heard the casting of Cable will have people going crazy, so we certainly hope that whoever’s chosen to bring the character to life is able to live up to the incredible amount of hype being generated. Given what we saw in Deadpool though, we’re not too worried.
In related news, LRM spoke with the sequel’s writers as well and got them to open up about some of the other familiar faces set to feature in the film. We haven’t heard too many specifics on who else will be showing up just yet, but we should expect to see “some more obscure” characters, according to Reese.
“Yeah, Cable and Domino grabbed the headlines on Deadpool. But there are definitely some more obscure characters that people know or that real diehards know that will be in there just by virtue of we need a new villain, and we need some new good guys to complement [Deadpool], but it is growing. Of course, it will be all about the lunacy that is Deadpool himself.”
So, from the sounds of it, there’s a ton to look forward to from the film. Though some production troubles spawned concern early on, things are certainly back on track and we’ve no reason to think that Deadpool 2 won’t be every bit as good as its predecessor. The promo we got with Logan may not have been fully indicative of what we’ll end up seeing, but as long as the team can re-capture that dark and irreverent sense of humor from the first outing, not to mention nail the casting of Cable, then things should turn out just fine.