The return of the merc with a mouth: all the trailers, news, and commentary for Deadpool 2

Deadpool 2 is now in theaters, and to herald its arrival, its marketing team has clearly pulled out all the stops. The stunts for Deadpool two years ago were wild enough, with wacky mock rom-com posters, a fake Tinder profile, and more. Now, the team has outdone itself with promotion for the sequel.

The Deadpool franchise is an eclectic mashup of genres and a meta-parody of the superhero genre, so the very weird tone set by its marketing stunts matches its product perfectly. I majored in marketing in college, and I was once on the brink of working for an ad agency, so I have to give props to this team. In a world dominated by behemoths like Avengers: Infinity War, which is still in theaters, a scrappier brand like Deadpool has to be good at this kind of creative marketing.

When the original Deadpool arrived in theaters, it was a breath of fresh air. Comics fans may have already been familiar with the smart-assed “merc with a mouth,” but in the context of modern superhero movies, both the character and the self-referential style of the 2016 film were a subversive delight. Deadpool’s creators clearly knew how silly superhero movies had become, recognized that audiences also knew it, and mixed it all up into an R-rated romp that brought in more than $780 million worldwide, while costing just a fraction of the price tag on an average DC or Marvel tentpole.

But studios and filmmakers learned the lessons of Deadpool quickly, with James Mangold’s Logan embracing the visceral intensity an R-rating can allow, and Marvel practically lampooning itself with Taika Waititi’s hilarious Thor: Ragnarok. We now live in a post-Deadpool world, and with the element of surprise no longer part of its arsenal, the inevitable Deadpool 2 has to go about the more traditional business of crafting a sequel that delivers on fan expectations, while also giving them just enough of a fresh twist that the entire thing doesn’t feel completely cynical. The result isn’t as novel as the original, or as effortlessly kinetic, but it is nevertheless a joke-packed action film that continues to deliver on the character’s potential, while opening up the door to an even bigger series of sarcastic superhero adventures.

We’re several weeks away from Deadpool 2, which means a massive marketing blitz and more magnificent Deadpool content to share. The latest drop is a music video for Céline Dion’s “Ashes,” which is featured on the film’s soundtrack. In the video, Deadpool does his best Flashdance impersonation, as Canadian national treasure Céline croons, “And when I pray to God all I ask is... can beauty come out of ashes?”

The video features some snippets from the upcoming movie, including Julian Dennison’s mutant character Russell and Deadpool with Vanessa. Deadpool also does some nice pirouettes and grand jetés in between — in stilettos, no less! — as Céline goes full Céline onstage. The performance concludes with a deadpan gag between the two, with Deadpool quipping, “[This is] too good. This is Deadpool 2, not Titanic. You’re an 11. We need to get you down to a five, five and a half tops. Just phone it in.”

This is a bit unexpected: Avengers: Infinity War won’t be the only big superhero team-up film coming out this spring. When 20th Century Fox released the latest trailer for Deadpool 2, it revealed that the film will introduce the X-Force.

What is completely expected from the trailer is more of Deadpool’s mouthy wisecracks, a lot of bloody violence, and meta-commentary on the nature of superhero films. From the looks of things, Deadpool is still doing the vigilante thing, until Josh Brolin’s Cable arrives with plans to kill a kid who seems to have powers. Cable isn’t letting anything stand in his way — including Deadpool. Violence ensues.

The latest trailer for Deadpool 2 has a lot of action shots featuring incoming villain Cable (Josh Brolin) — once his arm has been properly CGI’d into the shot, that is. In true meta-Deadpool fashion, the trailer pauses to pull off a Toy Story spoof before getting serious. “People think they understand pain, but they have no concept of it,” growls Cable. “What’s the most pain you’ve ever felt?” Commence punching and shooting.

Cable has a complicated comic backstory, and he’s appeared alongside Deadpool in a separate buddy team-up comic series, Cable & Deadpool. The film portrays him as a time-traveling cybernetic mutant soldier. Notably, Brolin has signed a deal to play the character in at least three more films, one of which will be an upcoming X-Force film.

Deadpool fans won’t have to wait as long as expected to see the film’s sequel. According to The Hollywood Reporter, 20th Century Fox is shuffling the release dates for its slate of X-Men films, moving Deadpool 2 to May 18th, two weeks earlier than its original June 1st release date .

Deadpool 2 isn’t the only film on the move. The studio is also bumping its horror-tinged The New Mutants nearly a year. The film was originally scheduled to be released on April 13th 2018, but now it won’t be arriving in theaters until February 22nd, 2019. THR reports that the moves are partially to ensure that The New Mutants and Deadpool 2 don’t overlap theatrical runs in some overseas markets.

The first teaser trailer has dropped for the highly anticipated Deadpool 2. The trailer opens with Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) dressed in a collared shirt and curly wig, spoofing Bob Ross’ The Joy of Painting, except it’s called “Gettin’ Wet on Wet with Deadpool 2.” He’s seen puttering around, muttering about the colors he’s using in his painting (which include “mennen black,” “box office gold,” “doc brown,” “pretty n’ pink,” “silverlicious,” “yellow snow,” “red dit,” and “Betty White”). “God I love cocaine,” he remarks to a painting of a snowy mountain range that suddenly appears after he haphazardly brushes the canvas.

The video then cuts to a 10-second montage of moments in the upcoming film. The fleeting scenes feature Dopinder (Karan Soni), the taxi driver from the first movie; Negasonic Teenage Warhead (Brianna Hildebrand) in the iconic yellow-and-black X-Men suit giving someone the finger and generally looking pretty badass; and teasers of new characters, including Zazie Beetz’s Domino, and a new character played by Julian Dennison. It’s literally a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it situation, as the montage is cut so quickly, but it’s worth watching a few times if you’re curious about what the next movie will be like.

Ryan Reynolds tweeted the first official image of Domino from Deadpool 2 today. The photo of Zazie Beetz, who will play the X-Force mutant in the sequel, is a callback to one of the first promo images of Reynolds as Deadpool, in which he lounges on a bear rug by a fire.

In the new image, Domino poses in the same room, near the same fire, except this time she’s lying on a Deadpool suit.

Deadpool 2 will officially be a summer blockbuster. The Hollywood Reporter reports that 20th Century Fox has scheduled the David Leitch film for June 1st, 2018. It’s also announced release dates for two other X-Men universe films: New Mutants will hit theaters on April 13th, while X-Men: Dark Phoenix is slated for November 2nd.

While Fox was one of the early studios to recognize the potential in an extended superhero franchise, it’s since been eclipsed by the likes of Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe and DC’s Extended Universe. Despite falling behind, the three releases show that Fox is still in the game when it comes to comic book adaptations. But, while the studio has had some incredible successes with the likes of 2016’s Deadpool and this year’s Logan, it’s not quite ready to go for an R rating all the time.

There’s no end credits scene playing at the end of Logan (which is fine by us), but there is a taste of Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool 2 playing before the film. The long teaser, titled No Good Deed, is an extended bit that takes no small amount of inspiration from another notable superhero franchise.

Reynolds shared the video this morning on Twitter, and it’s a fun one. Hearing an altercation, Wade Wilson runs to change into his costume, finding a nearby telephone booth. He changes to the tune of John Williams’ Superman films before leaping into action, only to discover that he’s a bit too late to save the day.

During a panel at CinemaCon today, 20th Century Fox exec Stacey Snider confirmed that Ryan Reynolds and director Tim Miller would both be returning for Deadpool’s upcoming sequel. When news of the sequel arrived just after Deadpool was released earlier this year, it already seemed very likely that Reynolds and Miller would come back, but now it’s officially official. Snider also said that in addition to Miller, the entire creative team would be returning.

Deadpool’s dick-joke-heavy comedic style ended up being more endearing than many expected it to be, and became the highest-grossing R-rated movie ever, earning more than $757 million worldwide. The studio is undoubtedly hoping to replicate that success by changing as little as possible.

Deadpool is only arriving in theaters this week, but Fox is confident enough in its slapstick superhero movie that it’s already greenlit a sequel, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The studio is reportedly intending to keep the same team together, hoping to reunite star Ryan Reynolds with director Tim Miller for Deadpool 2, to work on a script that’s currently being written by Deadpool writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick.

It’s a good bet that Reynolds and Miller will be back for the sequel. Both campaigned hard over the past few years to get a movie about the “merc with the mouth” made, and the juvenile but joyful results are expected to net Fox more than $65 million on Deadpool’s opening weekend. Reynolds, in particular, has come to embody the wisecracking character, having played a slightly different version of Deadpool — real name Wade Wilson — in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, before dressing up in the iconic costume to celebrate Halloween last year.