Thomas Roach on how Deadpool will be integrated into the X-Men movie universe…
Simon Kinberg has announced that Deadpool will share the same cinematic universe as the X-Men, which is no surprise. The X-Men universe has been somewhat reset with X-Men: Days of Future Past and with a new Deadpool movie set for February 12th, 2016, fans are surely excited to see how he will fit into what has already be done at Fox.
Frankly, despite this being an unsurprising move, it may in fact be a mistake. As Deadpool is so different to the X-Men characters despite featuring prominently in some of the comic stories, it would make more sense to keep the character on his own.
If you enjoyed X-Men: First Class and X-Men: Days of Future Past you may understand why Deadpool interacting with some of these characters would be bad. I would say that the X-Men reset is very serious and deals with issues of racism and war. Having Deadpool show up swearing, decapitating people, commenting on the actors playing the roles, sexually harassing the female characters and demanding a chimichanga will make you cringe.
There would be an option to make Deadpool serious but this would let down many fans. People really want to see the comic version of Deadpool with no compromise. If the test footage is anything to go by, the Deadpool we will be getting will certainly be breaking the fourth wall and cracking jokes constantly. This is not a bad thing but it doesn’t fit in with the other X-Men characters, in my opinion.
Deadpool will likely feature in the upcoming X-Force movie, which will be in a future timeline meaning that he will not have any interaction with the current actors in the X-Men films. He may end up interacting with Wolverine but then in order to appease fans would the character of Deadpool comment on Hugh Jackman playing the role and other aspects that would break the fourth wall? Many people really wouldn’t get this and that may be a major flaw in the Deadpool movie.
Of course he does not need to interact with the characters to be in the same universe. Deadpool if he is to be involved in X-Force will be in a future timeline and not interacting with the cast of X-Men: Apocalypse which will be set in 1983. There may be references to them sharing the same universe and that would be enough to say they exist alongside each other without actually meeting. Who knows though? Throwing Deadpool into the mix alongside James McAvoy’s Xavier and Michael Fassbender’s Magneto will be somewhat amusing but Kinberg is smart and I doubt he will do this.
Overall I do think that his inclusion in the X-Men universe may be limited to X-Force and probably wont be bumping into some of the more serious characters in the series. Yes the character will exist in the established universe but having his own stories to tell and interaction with only some of the characters would make more sense. I would like to see a more serious Deadpool in the films but I am a minority in thinking that. Deadpool will be silly, humorous, violent and foul mouthed but if we are to take the X-Men franchise seriously he can’t be ruining more serious storylines.
How would you like to see Deadpool integrated into the X-Men movie universe? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below…
Thomas Roach
Originally published October 7, 2014. Updated April 13, 2018.
