Anyone who’s watched the Marvel movies in order, whether they latched onto the franchise when Iron Man came out or came aboard later, knows that this franchise is as PG-13 as it gets. Every MCU movie has scored that very rating from the Motion Picture Association, making it an accessible form of entertainment to fans old and young. But that will soon change, as it’s been said on numerous occasions that next year’s Deadpool 3 will be rated R, and director Shawn Levy has reaffirmed this, teased dirty jokes and more for the Merc with the Mouth’s MCU entrance.
Like its two predecessors, which were made by 20th Century Fox before the studio was absorbed by Disney and renamed to 20th Century Studios, Deadpool 3 won’t shy away from adult content, with Lucy saying “Fuck yes” about the upcoming 2024 movie being R-rated when Wired inquired on the matter. He then said this about how much freedom Marvel Studios has awarded the threequel when it comes to tone and humor:
Not only have Kevin Feige and Marvel and Disney supported this extremely Deadpool-ian, audacious, R-rated tone, they’ve also supported our super meta, self-referential self-awareness. Some of the jokes are dirty, some of them are cultural observations, but that’s what we love about Deadpool, that he knows he’s in a movie, even though the stakes are real. Our movie is very loyal to that DNA too, with tremendous Marvel and Disney support, in making fun of and being self-aware about everything, including themselves.
To be fair, if Marvel has decided to make Deadpool 3 PG-13, it wouldn’t be the first time Ryan Reynolds’ version of this character has played around in such confines, as in late 2018, a PG-13 cut of Deadpool 2 called Once Upon a Deadpool briefly played in theaters. However, Kevin Feige and the rest of the MCU and Disney brass decided to keep this take on Deadpool in R-rated territory, which pleases Shawn Levy. Who knows, maybe this will result in more MCU productions being stamped with that more adult classification, like Mahershala Ali’s Blade reboot.
While official plot details are sparse, Deadpool 3 looks like it will follow in Spider-Man: No Way Home and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness in exploring the multiverse, specifically by looping in other Marvel characters from the Fox-era movies. So far the only official confirmed member of the Deadpool 3 cast who fits this criteria is Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine, who’s finally getting to wear his yellow suit and also got his own R-rated adventure in the form of Logan. Although Jackman and Reynolds previously paired together in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, this will be the first time Wolverine is hanging out with a faithful version of Deadpool on the big screen, and you know there won’t be any problems getting these two into R-rated antics.
Although Deadpool 3 is currently slated for May 3, 2024, it will almost certainly need to be pushed back on the upcoming Marvel movies schedule, as even if the SAG-AFTRA strike ends soon, filming isn’t expected to resume until next January. If you’d like to revisit the first two Deadpool movies while we wait for updates on the next installment, they can be streamed with a Disney+ subscription.
