Thus far, Ryan Reynolds’ superhero has not played well with others. But the JoJo Rabbit director could be just the man to integrate him into the wider Marvel cinematic universe
Successfully integrating Deadpool into the Marvel Cinematic Universe may be the most challenging task faced by Kevin Feige in his 13 years running the studio. This is, after all, a character so outrageous and eccentric that his previous studio bosses, at 20th Century Fox, barely allowed him to venture into the main X-Men timeline, for fear that all that wisecracking meta-nuttiness would be too unsettling for its oh-so-serious mutant saga.
Deadpool’s screenwriters, Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, have previously played the potty-mouthed antihero’s detachment from the world of Charles Xavier and Magneto for laughs – he only ever seems to hang out with X-Men we have barely heard of, such as Negasonic Teenage Warhead and her girlfriend, Yukio. But there is good reason: Ryan Reynolds’ R-rated, ultraviolent and bawdy version of Deadpool needs to be front and centre in his own movie, to avoid overwhelming everything around him.