‘Deadpool 2’ Writers Discuss Setting Up ‘X-Force’ Universe

Screenwriting duo Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick have a lot to celebrate. Their work on Deadpool has been receiving a surprising amount of notoriety during awards season, including a Writer’s Guild of America nomination for Adapted Screenplay. Also, with work on writing the script for the sequel well underway, there’s plenty to be excited about with not only what’s in store for the Merc with a Mouth, but also how they set up the X-Force.

The future of the X-Men franchise is a bit of a mystery, and we will hopefully get a better idea on where it’s headed after Logan opens in theaters this March. Thankfully, with Josh Boone’s New Mutants and David Leitch’s Deadpool 2, this new phase of the franchise seems very exciting.

In an exclusive interview with Collider, Reese and Wernick got a chance to discuss the process of setting up the right foundation for an eventual X-Force film.

RHETT REESE: There is a responsibility we have to the X-Force universe, and I do think we will not disappoint the fans going into Deadpool 2 and then setting up X-Force and beyond.

PAUL WERNICK: We never want to let the tail wag the dog. We want to tell the best Deadpool story we can. But I do think we have a responsibility to think about a larger universe in the way that Marvel does and start to put pieces in place. Some of these movies feel overstuffed and almost choking with the need to set up eighteen different things that pay off down the road, and we want to avoid that responsibility to the extent that it hurts us. We want to hint at things, we want to plan some characters, and we want to make some nods, but we’re very, very cognizant about making sure that Deadpool is above all a Deadpool movie.

REESE: Its purpose is not to set up X-Force. It will likely set up X-Force, but the drive of the movie won’t be our eyes on Movie 3.

It’s great to hear that Reese and Wernick are focusing more on telling the best story possible for Deadpool 2. On many occasions, we see sequels to critically-acclaimed comic book films try to cram in too many narratives that attempt to branch the story out into a larger universe. Unfortunately, this difficult balancing act of clashing story beats often loses focus on what the film’s actual story is about. As exciting as it would be to see more hints about X-Force, I hope that Reese and Wernick only sprinkle that fan-service here and there and not overwhelm Deadpool’s arc in the sequel.

Deadpool 2 arrives in theaters on January 12th, 2018

Source: Collider