we've got a lot of projects lined up, but we wake up thinking about Deadpool, and we go to sleep thinking about Deadpool.' 'I think the party line and truth is we're all still figuring it out.

'We're always in touch with Ryan,' Wernick said. Finally, October 2019 brought a small trickle of news: Deadpool screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, fresh off of scripting Zombieland: Double Tap, told Entertainment Weekly that they still had high hopes for a third installment. San Diego Comic-Con and D23 both came and went, with nary a mention of Deadpool's cinematic future. Reynolds, of course, took to Twitter to post a picture of himself in costume sporting Mickey Mouse ears while aboard a school bus, with the caption, 'Feels like the first day of 'Pool.' Reliable outlets such as The Hollywood Reporter assured us that, according to their sources, Deadpool would remain R-rated, and would be the only X-Man not to be recast. Well, the very same day the Fox/Disney deal closed, we got some tentative answers to some of these questions. Would Mickey Mouse really deign to give us more R-rated Deadpool films, or would he be reduced to a watered-down, PG-13 shadow of his former self? Would Reynolds, along with all of the Fox franchise's other stars, be (gasp) recast? Then, suddenly, we remembered: holy crap, Deadpool is one of Fox's properties! What could this mean? After all, the Merc with a Mouth practically pioneered R-rated superhero films, singlehandedly proving that they were viable both 2016's Deadpool and 2018's Deadpool 2 cashed in big at the box office, and won the foul-mouthed anti-hero legions of new, faithful fans, largely thanks to the presence of star Ryan Reynolds in the role he was unquestionably born to play. New, exciting possibilities for future Big Bads were suddenly on the table (Doctor freakin' Doom, anyone?), and we could rest secure in the knowledge that no matter how badly Fox had fumbled the X-Men franchise in recent years, a big, fat reboot is on the way from the studio that is seemingly incapable of doing any wrong.

No longer would the world of the Avengers be kept separate from the world of mutants no more would we be sadly aware that, no matter where the Guardians of the Galaxy's adventure took them, they would never encounter Galactus.

The move meant that finally, at long last, some of the venerable comic publisher's most iconic properties - such as the X-Men, Fantastic Four, and Silver Surfer, to name just a few - would have all of their film rights housed with the same studio. Ever since Disney acquired the film and television assets of Fox Studios in March 2019, Mighty Marvel fans have been beside themselves with anticipation.

Cast of deadpool