2016 has been a very good year at the box office for superhero movies. Captain America: Civil War reigns supreme with over $1 billion, but Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Deadpool are not far behind. The latter's success was a surprise to all thanks to the R-rating and Deadpool not being the most recognizable of heroes, thereby bringing a fresh face to a busy genre. Fox was clearly happy with the results of a possible gamble, and Deadpool 2 was quickly given the chance to move forward. Despite the success that the first film had, the sequel has been handed some unexpected problems.

Tim Miller was scheduled to return to direct the sequel, but due to creative differences with Ryan Reynolds, he made the decision to move on. This leaves a noticeable hole behind the camera, but John Wick co-director David Leitch is reportedly the top choice to be the replacement. If he is selected, a new report points to him being given not very much time in pre-production before filming begins.

What's Filming? (via OmegaUnderground) has posted a new filming schedule for projects set to make their way to Vancouver, Canada in the coming months. Surprisingly enough, Deadpool 2 was one of the projects listed to begin production in January of 2017. No specific date was named, but this would give any new director only two months to work on their vision for the sequel before cameras started to roll.

Tim Miller and Ryan Reynolds on the set of Deadpool

For fans closely following the development of the sequel, this is not the first time it has been reported that an early 2017 start was possible. Producer Simon Kinberg has previously stated that Fox was targeting an early 2017 start date for Deadpool 2, which he later double downed on by saying it would be the next film in the X-Men universe to begin production after Logan.

Kinberg's comments at the time were true, but this was before any of the recent departures happened. If this is still the plan, any director that is coming on at this stage will largely be following the plans that Reynolds and writers Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese have constructed. This would leave little room for creative freedom from any director, no matter how talented, to have on the sequel.

The possibility that makes the most sense regarding this report is that What's Filming is operating on old information. Since this appeared to have been the plan for some time, this date would have made sense if not for the recent developments surrounding the project over the last few weeks. Instead, fans can only hope that the new director is given more than two months to help improve upon the current concepts before a potential January 2017 start date.

Source: What's Filming? (via OmegaUnderground)

Key Release Dates