With Dark Phoenix, The New Mutants, and Gambit each experiencing their own ongoing production difficulties, the X-Men universe seems to be in a pretty messy state right now, and while we’re not hearing the same worrying stories for X-Force, even director Drew Goddard is uncertain about how the Fox/Disney merger is going to affect this Deadpool spinoff.
Though much of the cast of Deadpool 2 seems game to return, Goddard has recently been kept busy by his new movie Bad Times at the El Royale. But now that this mystery thriller has made it to cinemas, it doesn’t look like the filmmaker will be pushing forward with X-Force quite yet, telling Rooster Teeth:
“The truth is I don’t have anything exciting to update,” Goddard said. “I tend to focus very intensely on one project at a time and I’ve been very much in this world. Ryan [Reynolds] has simultaneously shooting another movie and then we do have the Fox/Disney stuff. I’m not going to sit here and pretend I have any insight into that at all.”
The Cabin in the Woods helmsman said much the same a couple of weeks ago. Though Goddard, acknowledged that the discussions of the historic deal are above his pay grade, the director also stressed that he’s “incredibly excited” about what they could do together.
Whatever legal factors are at play here, Disney and Fox are surely aware of the lucrative property they’re dealing with and know the fan backlash they’d receive for scrapping Wade Wilson’s film series. Though the writers of Deadpool 2 have admitted that they don’t know whether their character will be joining the MCU, Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige has long proven himself to be a good judge of what audiences want.
In short, we may not know what’s going to happen with this planned X-Force movie, but it doesn’t look like it’s time for anyone to panic quite yet.