'Deadpool' Writers: Don't Expect an 'X-Men' Crossover Any Time Soon

The 'Deadpool' writers are here to crush your crossover dreams.

Given the outrageous success of Deadpool​—it's on the path to topple Passion of the Christ as the highest-grossing R-rated movie of all time—it's no surprise writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick​ are already tossing around ideas for a sequel. Earlier this month they hinted that Deadpool and Cable might team up in Deadpool 2, but they also made it clear that they'd stay as far away from the X-Men universe as possible. In a new interview with The Playlist, both Reese and Wernick confirm that fans of both Deadpool​ and the X-Men series shouldn't expect to see a crossover any time soon. 

For one thing, they want to fully establish Deadpool's universe and storyline before bringing any additional plotlines into the mix. "If you look at the Iron Man model, they had two Iron Man[movies] before they had an Avengers, and if left up to us I think that would be a very prudent path," Reese said. "The second issue at hand is the X-Men universe timeline. The X-Men series is currently set in the 1980s. Deadpool is set three decades later in our present day."

"It's a timeline that will eventually catch up I would imagine," Wernick said. But he also emphasized Deadpool's value as an independent superhero series: "Deadpool's now become a franchise until himself, independent of the X-Men, and that's great. You'll see synergy between those two properties, but they're two very distinct brands." 

Ironically, Wernick said he and Reese had a hard time convincing studio execs to let them write in X-Men characters into Deadpool in the first place—they wanted Taskmaster and Wolverine but had to make do with Colossus and Negasonic Teenage Warhead, two relative unknowns. However, Deadpool​'s incredible box office success—it's set to make $30 million this weekend alone, bringing its worldwide total to more than $500 million—means the studio will probably be willing to cede bigger characters to the writers who made it happen. 

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