Again, because the audience reaction was so strong online, Fox couldn’t ignore what was staring them in the face and decided to fast track Deadpool. It was evidence that Fox hadn’t given up on X-Force, but between X-Men: Apocalypse and December 2015, another important moment occurred: the leaked Deadpool footage. A report from revealed a piece of concept art for the film that artist Gregory Semkow described as “freaking badass.” The art suggested what the potential lineup for the film would look like and, according to Semkow, was based on the script he had seen. In December 2015, we finally got a bit of an answer thanks to a leaked document.
It was uncertain when the movie would come ou, or how invested Fox was in bringing it to the big screen. “Everything changed.” Although Fox never took the X-Force movie off its production slate, the movie was stuck in production purgatory. RT and the movie of x-force? What's new?- robertliefeld June 2, 2014 In a follow-up tweet, Liefeld acknowledged that a first draft just marked the beginning of the filmmaking process.Įverything changed when X-Men Apocalypse was announced. In 2013, The Hollywood Reporter broke the news that Jeff Wadlow, who at the time was preparing for the release of Kick-Ass 2, was being tapped by Fox to write an X-Force movie, with potential to direct.īy December, X-Force creator Rob Liefeld, who also created Deadpool, tweeted that he read a complete first draft of the script. In that story, the magazine suggested that “in a sign of how much faith it has in the Reynolds-starring franchise, Fox already is planning Deadpool 3, readying a filmmaker search for a storyline that will involve another X-team, X-Force, say sources.”ĭespite The Hollywood Reporter’s story, this wasn’t the first time the possibility of an X-Force movie was uttered.
In November 2016, The Hollywood Reporter published a report on the issues the X-Men franchise was having at Fox. Despite a few hiccups down the road that came from Miller departing the project after citing creative differences with Reynolds, Deadpool wasn’t a problematic franchise for the studio. Everything appeared OK on the Deadpool front. In April 2016, Fox confirmed it had ordered a sequel to Deadpool, confirming that director Tim Miller and writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick would return.
Following the film’s outstanding success - exceeding $780 million worldwide - Fox put all of its focus into the Deadpool franchise. It was only because of the overwhelmingly positive response to leaked test footage that Fox went ahead with a project that Ryan Reynolds had spent close to 12 years trying to make. Prior to Deadpool’s release in February 2016, the superhero was a contentious figure for Fox. Goddard’s appointment is a good sign that Fox is going all in on all things Deadpool. Goddard is best known for writing Ridley Scott’s adaptation of The Martian and creating Netflix’s first Marvel superhero series, Daredevil. X-Force, Fox’s Deadpool and Cable-centric spinoff film set in the X-Men universe, has a new director and writer, pushing the project further along than it’s been in months.ĭrew Goddard will write and direct Ryan Reynolds and Josh Brolin in X-Force, Deadline reports.