It seems that barely a day goes by without a new addition to the Deadpool rumor mill, and there are very few superhero movies in recent memory that have been the subject of such widespread and constant speculation as the Merc with a Mouth’s Marvel Cinematic Universe debut, despite the only concrete information we have on the project coming almost a year ago when Ryan Reynolds confirmed that it was officially in active development.
Since then, Deadpool has been linked to virtually every MCU film that’s currently in the works, and even some that haven’t been announced yet. The R-rating is still the major elephant in the room that Kevin Feige will need to deal with sooner or later, but the fact that the two Fox installments combined to earn over $1.5 billion at the box office would make it perfectly clear that skewing towards a more adult audience doesn’t have an impact on the character’s earning potential.
If anything, the added boost that comes from being associated with the world’s biggest and most popular franchise could see Deadpool 3 realistically trouble the billion dollar mark, which may potentially give the franchise the unique distinction of having all three entries become the highest-grossing R-rated movie ever made, should the third installment manage to topple Joker. But looking elsewhere in the MCU for a minute, and the latest report claims that Reynolds will make his long-awaited bow in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, something that’s been frequently mooted as a distinct possibility.
“It’s been revealed to us by sources close to the project that Ryan Reynold’s Deadpool will be debuting in the MCU in Doctor Strange 2,” says Small Screen. “They claimed that he’ll be introduced via the Multiverse and that it will be just a brief cameo in the movie.”
Of course, the introduction of alternate realities presents the ideal opportunity to have a self-aware and irreverent antihero that got his start at a different studio cross over into the MCU, but we’ll have to wait until March 2022 to see if Deadpool ends up meeting the Sorcerer Supreme or not.