Will Deadpool 3 Save the MCU?

Deadpool 3—officially titled Deadpool & Wolverine—is coming this year. And there's a ball-busting (no, literally) trailer to prove it.

The last instalment, in which Ryan Reynolds' titular “merc with a mouth” squared off with Josh Brolin's Cable, arrived almost six years ago. To up the stakes this time, Reynolds has enlisted the help of his longtime frenemy Hugh Jackman, whose blade-fisted superhero has been canonically dead since 2017's Logan.

A lot has changed in the intervening years: Deadpool and X-Men studio 20th Century Fox was acquired by Disney, so now Marvel Studios holds the keys to Deadpool, meaning that the famed fourth wall-breaker will be absorbed into the MCU in future appearances, including the third installment.

The rumor mill had churned endlessly as to when Ryan Reynolds' anti-hero would make his MCU debut—some even thought they saw him in the poster for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Those turned out to be false—but it's a multiverse, so anything can happen.

If the Deadpool 3-specific rumors are to be believed, this installment will be replete with cameos from familiar faces across the Marvel-sphere. Kelsey Grammer's post-credits reprisal as the X-Men's Beast in The Marvels seems a lot like a tease of what's to come. Just don't quote us.

Here's everything we know about Deadpool 3.

All we really know so far is that it'll be R-rated, a subject of major debate with Deadpool being sucked into the family-friendly MCU proper; the film's creators have promised the character won't be “Disney-fied” (the newly released trailer, with its many crotch-focused gags, can attest to that).

“And we were used to doing things our way, so there are differences, but I think the great part is that Marvel's been incredibly supportive,” writer Rhett Reese told The Playlist. "They are gonna let Deadpool be Deadpool, you know? It's not like any particular joke may be the one that they say, 'You know, that's too far,' that could happen, but to this point, it's been nothing but support."

Other than that, there's not a ton of info out there. Even the trailer doesn't give much away, except the fact this one will truly be a two-hander with Jackman's Wolverine and they'll have to save the world from [insert vague megalomaniacal evil villain here].

As Deadpool himself would probably insist on putting it, the edging is over! After what feels like a lifetime of teasing, the first official trailer for Deadpool & Wolverine has been released.

After killing off the character in 2017's Logan, Jackman's Wolverine is back propping up bars with a snarl. As of right now, we don't know how the timelines square, though Reynolds has said the film doesn't interfere with Wolverine's beautifully melancholic ending.

In the trailer, we see the pair reluctantly team up while also firing bullets into each other's sides and stabbing each other in the balls. Well, when you can both heal from literally anything, no nether regions are out of bounds. We also see a first glimpse at Matthew Macfadyen and Emma Corrin making their MCU debuts. You can watch the full trailer here.

It's called Deadpool & Wolverine, so there's a clue right there. Reynolds first appeared as Wade Wilson in the much-maligned X-Men Origins: Wolverine in 2009, and since officially donning the prosthetics again in 2016, it's been a waiting game for how and when he'd get his old co-star and longtime frenemy Hugh Jackman back in the suit.

Jackman joining Deadpool & Wolverine was a surprise when it was announced back in 2022, mainly because, uh, he killed the character off in 2017's Logan, a grand and seemingly definitive moment of closure for Jackman's take on the character. We've been assured that the timelines don't interfere, and what makes the move marginally less cash-grabby is that it's never not fun to see Jackman and Reynolds pretend to hate each other.

Elsewhere, you've got Emma Corrin and Matthew Macfadyen's first forays into the MCU, making sure the British-villain quota never dips below zero. Although it hasn't been confirmed who Corrin is playing, the trailer suggests it's Cassandra Nova, Charles Xavier's parasitic twin sister (yeah, she's bald too). As for Macfadyen, he can never stray far from the grips of a mega-conglomerate. He plays a character called Paradox, who seems linked to the Time Variance Authority, which was first introduced in the Loki TV series.

Elsewhere, Rob Delaney, Morena Baccarin and Karan Soni will all be back, while it's also rumoured that Josh Brolin's Cable and Jennifer Garner's Elektra (yes, from that Daredevil era) are returning.

It's no secret that times have been tough for the MCU. Between a litany of commercial and critical big screen disappointments—The Marvels, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and Eternals chiefly among them—Marvel no longer boasts the promise of top-tier blockbusters. Couple that with the taste of the superhero genre growing increasingly stale, and it's clear that this is a franchise in need of a zhuzh.

Fortunately for Marvel fans, Argylle director Matthew Vaughn thinks that Deadpool 3 could be the “jolt” the franchise needs. Appearing on BroBible's Post-Credit podcast as part of the Argylle press tour, Vaughn said: “The few snippets that I know about Deadpool vs. Wolverine — or Wolverine vs. Deadpool, I'm sure that argument between Ryan and Hugh is happening as we speak — are unbelievable.”

Vaughn, who directed 2011's superhero flick X-Men: First Class, continued: “That's going to be the jolt… the Marvel universe is about to have a jolt of them and it's going to bring that body back to life… I think Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman are about to save the whole Marvel universe.”

While morale may have wobbled at Marvel HQ recently, they've always had an ace up their sleeves in the form of the X-Men, the film rights to which were nabbed by Marvel Studios parent company Disney when they acquired 20th Century Fox in December 2017. And after the X-Men comes another big play: the Fantastic Four movie, which has cast its FF and its Silver Surfer and is expected to drop in 2025.

It won't be long now, thankfully. Filming wrapped in January, and Deadpool 3 will arrive in this summer—on July 26, to be precise.