With X-Men: First Class hitting theaters in just a few months and The Wolverine hopefully starting production soon, X-Men film fans are undoubtedly curious as to what is coming next from Twentieth Century Fox for Marvel's mutants. We just reported on producer Lauren Shuler-Donner's bomb-drop that X-Men 4 & 5 are in "active development," but she didn't stop at that.

In the same feature in the upcoming issue of Empire, Donner also touched on the Deadpool movie, a film we're optimistic about but also concerned for.

With X-Men Origins: Wolverine doing a terrible job of handling the character of Wade Wilson, the man who becomes the infamous Deadpool, there's been uncertainly as to how the studio and writers will handle the character in his own spin-off. Combine that with the uncertainty of the project itself, with Ryan Reynolds becoming the Warner Bros. poster boy for Green Lantern and the difficulties in locking d0wn a director (Robert Rodriguez is out), we're flat out confused as to the plan for Deadpool, despite Reynolds' claims that the movie is still coming.

By all accounts, the Deadpool script by Zombieland writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick is stellar, and works well with its risky and unique nature. While they don't have a director yet, Donner did elaborate a little on what to expect from the film and how it relates to the X-Men franchise. Or should I say... how it does not relate:

"It's a total reboot… We're either going to pretend that didn’t happen – or mock it, which he could. It's insane, it's definitely comedy... But it's an R script, it's really irreverent and violent. Right away, we're out of the X-Men world."

Note the "mock it" part which I fully expect to happen in the film. Deadpool of course is a 'special' comic book character of sorts who can break the fourth wall, make pop culture references about and including himself, making quips directly to the reader, or in this case, theater-going audiences.

Reynolds recently praised the latest script revision, echoing Donner's statements here regarding its adult rating, although he described it bordering the tight line between a PG-13 and an R-rating. Will the film stick with an R-rating? It's highly doubtful considering how many box office receipts they'd lose from younger audiences who love (and will pay for) Ryan Reynolds.

With Deadpool being a reboot and hopeful start to its own franchise (how many can Fox run at once?) we don't have to worry about the convoluted plot mess left behind by the Wolverine solo outing. It seems X-Men: First Class is mostly ignoring it too so it makes you wonder what was going on behind-the-scenes in planning out that story.

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Source: Obsessed With Film