As of 12:02 a.m. ET tonight, the historic Disney/Fox merger will officially come into effect. And among the many ways that the deal will send tremors across the entertainment industry, this means that the Mouse House will soon be acquiring a hefty new batch of Marvel characters, one of the biggest being a certain Merc with a Mouth.
In recognition of this moment, Ryan Reynolds has take to Twitter with a picture of Deadpool wearing Mickey Mouse ears while riding a school bus labeled “Disney.” In the caption, the star explains his thoughts as follows:
“Feels like the first day of ‘Pool.”
What happens next for Deadpool and his X-Men friends remains to be seen, but recasting Wade Wilson while his series is still hot seems like outright self-sabotage, so we can probably assume that Reynolds will survive the transition.
Another thing that we can expect the Deadpool franchise to maintain is its R-rating, with Disney CEO Bob Iger offering his assurance earlier this year that the Merc won’t be forced to tone down his image. With that in mind, there’s a good chance that Deadpool 3 won’t be among the many X-Men-related projects that the deal has effectively killed. Indeed, Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick mentioned a couple of months ago that they’re in the process of shooting ideas back and forth with Reynolds, who’s since said that the threequel will be going “in a completely different direction” from the first two entries.
On the other hand, it’s been a while since we’ve heard any encouraging news about Drew Goddard’s X-Force film, but hopefully we can receive some clarification on Deadpool’s future at the D23 Expo in August, if not sooner. In the meantime, the MCU will be cutting down its current roster to make way for some new arrivals when Avengers: Endgame comes out on April 26th.