Ryan Reynolds Is Reportedly Putting DEADPOOL 4 Front and Center as Legal Drama Swirls
A new industry report suggests Ryan Reynolds is keeping his attention squarely on the future of Deadpool, even as off-screen complications continue to ripple through his personal life. With Marvel fans eager to know what’s next for the Merc with a Mouth, the timing of this update feels significant.
Reynolds’ career arc has been anything but predictable. After Green Lantern nearly knocked him off course, he rebounded in a massive way with Deadpool in 2016, a movie that reshaped his Hollywood standing and helped launch an era of smart, calculated business plays.
Fast forward to 2024 and Deadpool & Wolverine exploded at the box office, becoming one of the year’s biggest success stories. Reynolds is already set to suit up again as Wade Wilson in Avengers: Doomsday, arriving in theaters this December.
At the same time, his wife Blake Lively is still entangled in a high-profile legal dispute with It Ends With Us filmmaker Justin Baldoni. That situation has drawn plenty of attention, especially after private text messages were made public, and it’s reportedly influencing how Hollywood views projects connected to the couple.
According to Puck, some of Reynolds’ non-Marvel work has been caught in a holding pattern. The outlet reports:
"Apple has been sitting on a finished Skydance movie, Mayday—a comedic survival story starring Reynolds and Kenneth Branagh—for more than a year. Sources say a release date will be announced soon. (It will go straight to streaming, likely in September.) Apple declined to comment."
Beyond that stalled release, Reynolds still has a busy slate ahead. Puck adds:
"Reynolds has other projects on the runway: He’s exec producer and a voice in Animal Friends from Warners and Legendary, which drops in late May, and he’s in production on Eloise for Netflix."
What stands out most, though, is where sources say his real energy is going:
"Sources say Reynolds is also wisely focused on the next Deadpool movie, which will give him a chance to be seen as the public loves him most."
That lines up with what surfaced last May, when it was revealed Reynolds had quietly started writing a new Deadpool project. The early concept reportedly involved Wade Wilson alongside three or four X-Men characters, with the twist being that Deadpool wouldn’t necessarily headline the story.
Instead, the idea positioned him as a supporting player in a film separate from Jake Schreier’s upcoming X-Men reboot. At that stage, the project wasn’t officially greenlit, and Reynolds was said to be working outside the studio system.
Still, after the runaway success of Deadpool & Wolverine, it always felt inevitable that Disney and Marvel Studios would move quickly on whatever he pitched next.
More recently, online scoopers have claimed Reynolds could be developing an X-Force movie. That wouldn’t be a random pivot. Deadpool’s time with the team during Rick Remender’s X-Force comic run is a fan favorite, pairing him with characters like Wolverine, Archangel, Psylocke, and Fantomex.
Reynolds has also been open in the past about wanting to make an X-Force movie back when the X-Men rights were still under 20th Century Fox.
Puck has a strong track record, and its latest reporting points to one clear takeaway. No matter what shape it ultimately takes, another Deadpool movie appears to be Reynolds’ top priority once he wraps his Marvel Cinematic Universe return in Avengers: Doomsday, which hits theaters on December 18.