Josh Brolin Says He's Set To Play Cable 4 Times, So Get Ready For More 'Deadpool' Movies

After the immense success of 2016's Deadpool and just the general state of superhero movies these days, pretty much nobody was surprised when plans for Deadpool 2 were announced. And now, Deadpool-verse newcomer Josh Brolin is dropping some major hints about how many Deadpool movies will happen in the next few years, and it will be very reassuring to fans of the merc with a mouth.

Josh Brolin is the supervillain of the moment in the Marvel universe right now — playing both the time-traveling assassin Cable in Deadpool 2 and the intergalactic despot Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War — but ironically, he admitted to not liking the idea of big movie franchises in a new interview with Empire Magazine (via The Playlist). That's why Brolin made sure to take parts that had a clear end, as opposed to open-ended roles that have kept stars like Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Evans in spandex suits for a decade. Although he did not clarify whether or not Thanos will be gone for good after Avengers: Infinity War, he did let fans know exactly how many Deadpool movies he will be playing Cable in: four.

We think about it in four movie terms. We tried to think of Cable as a full arc, not just in this movie, but in the trajectory of four films. That made it a lot more fun for me.

So to break that down: Deadpool 2 is Cable's first movie, and then he will likely appear in the X-Force spinoff movie that is slated to begin filming this year, and then there will be two more sequels for Cable after that, whether its Deadpool 3 and 4, X-Force 2 and 3, or most likely, Deadpool 3 and X-Force 2. However those later movies work out, it all means the same thing: Deadpool is not going anywhere anytime soon.

Although 20th Century Fox is making big plans for the future of the Deadpool franchise, one very important wrinkle that could potentially shake everything up is the highly publicized Disney-Fox deal. If Disney's proposed acquisition of 21st Century Fox receives regulatory approval and closes — as it is expected to in the summer of 2019 — then the rights to Deadpool, the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, and all other Marvel properties that Fox snapped up before Disney acquired Marvel Studios would be transported to Disney. In layman's terms, Deadpool will then be within the same cinematic universe as the Avengers, making it possible for him to pop up in any major Marvel movie.

While many fans are excited about the prospect of Deadpool, the X-Men, and other Fox-owned Marvel heroes joining the greater Marvel Cinematic Universe, there is one major concern about what a Disney-owned Deadpool movie might look like: the rating. Deadpool broke records as the highest-grossing R-rated film ever, but unlike Fox, Disney is not known to produce R-rated movies — all of its Marvel movies have received ratings of PG-13. Disney CEO Bob Iger addressed this concern to Collider when the acquisition deal was first announced last year, but only said there is a possibility that Disney would continue to make R-rated Deadpool movies. So, there is still not a sure answer to that question, but we are still a year away from when the acquisition is slated to close, so there's a lot of time to figure that out.

In the meantime, we have a bunch of new Deadpool and X-Force movies to look forward to, according to Josh Brolin's statement. The X-Force spinoff movie will begin filming this October, prior to the Disney-Fox deal's approval, and Deadpool 2 hits theaters on May 18.