Following reports that Deadpool 2 has begun filming in Canada, star Ryan Reynolds has shared the first official set photo for the sequel. The movie is currently shooting at Hatley Castle, the stand-in for Professor Xavier's "X-Men Mansion" from a number of the previous X-Men movie installments (including, naturally, the first Deadpool). John Wick co-director David Leitch is calling the shots on the sequel, with Reynolds reprising his Golden Globe-nominated role as the eponymous Merc With a Mouth.
Also returning for the Deadpool sequel are such people as Stefan Kapicic and Brianna Hildebrand as, respectively, Colossus and Negasonic Teenage Warhead. Those two mutants were the only proper members of the X-Men to appear in the first Deadpool film - a fact that served as the basis for a joke in the movie, concerning its relatively lower budget (for an X-Men tentpole, that is). It appears safe to say that there won't be any other major X-Men appearing in Deadpool 2, either.
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Case in point: Reynolds has now released the following Deadpool 2 set photo online through his verified Twitter account, accompanied with a message that reads "Dropped by the X-Mansion. Big [f***ing] surprise. No one's home."
James McAvoy will reprise Professor X in next year's X-Men: Dark Phoenix, with his fellow X-Men: First Class film trilogy stars Michael Fassbender and Jennifer Lawrence also returning to once again play Magneto and Mystique, respectively. Dark Phoenix will take place in the 1990s, in keeping with the now-established tradition of having separate movies featuring the First Class cast take place a decade apart. That essentially rules out the possibility of an appearance by McAvoy or any of the other First Class actors in the modern-day set Deadpool 2 - on the off-chance that any X-Men movie fans were still holding out hope for such a crossover.
Deadpool 2 will thus focus on further expanding the corner of the X-Men cinematic universe that its predecessor established, rather than attempt to connect to the events of the mainline X-Men film installments. In addition to the return of both Colossus and Negasonic Teenage Warhead, the Deadpool sequel will feature Josh Brolin as Cable and Zazie Beetz as Domino, laying the groundwork for those characters to appear in such movies as Deadpool 3 and/or X-Force down the line, in the process. Rumors persist that those might not be the only mutants introduced to the X-Men movies in Deadpool 2, either.
As for the decision to keep the Deadpool corner of the X-Men franchise separate from other upcoming installments, that only makes sense from a storytelling perspective. As this Twitter post from Reynolds suggests, Deadpool 2 will be embracing the same crude, R-Rated, self-reflexive sense of humor as its predecessor did. That alone makes it a poor match to crossover with the soap opera drama expected from Dark Phoenix, as well as the horror movie vibe that next year's New Mutants is going for. That said, it's still rude of Professor X to not let Wade Wilson know that he won't be at home, ahead of time.
Source: Ryan Reynolds
