Fox spent many years trying to keep Ryan Reynold's Deadpool out of theaters, but after one glorious "leak" brought concept footage online, the demand was too high for Fox to say no any longer. This "leak" has been the best thing to happen to the X-Men universe, with Deadpool going on to not only become the highest grossing film in the franchise, but the highest R-rated film of all-time. Fox is now hoping that Deadpool 2 can deliver for them once again, but pre-production has not run as smoothly as some had hoped.
The sequel lost director Tim Miller due to creative differences, although has since found John Wick co-director David Leitch to replace him. With that squared away, it was surprising to learn earlier this week that Drew Goddard has become involved in the writing process. As the script continues to be worked on, the film has now been confirmed to start filming this summer, but it will be later than previously expected.
The Directors Guild of Canada (via Omega Underground) now lists June 19th as the start date for Deadpool 2, and also adds that the sequel will wrap up filming around three months later on September 18th.
This is a rather quick filming schedule, but is actually only slightly longer than Deadpool's. This new start date is a month and a half later than the most recent rumored date, but does lines up with a previous report pointing to June being the targeted start, meaning that if this change is influenced to some degree by Goddard's involvement, it's not in too big a way.
The date should give the creative team more time to finish the script and finalize casting; so far there has been no official word on additions to the cast, only that Colossus, Negasonic Teenage Warhead, and Dopinder will be returning. However, Pierce Brosnan and Russell Crowe have been linked to Cable recently, while Kerry Washington is a favorite for Domino.
Producer Simon Kinberg recently confirmed that Fox intends to have Deadpool 2 be a 2018 release, with their previously established March date the prime landing spot. This new filming schedule and proposed release would still leave Fox six months for post-production work, which should be more than enough considering that the sequel is aiming to be on a similar scale to the original.
Source: Directors Guild of Canada (via Omega Underground)
