Shawn Levy Tapped To Direct Ryan Reynolds In ‘Deadpool 3’

Director Shawn Levy is sliding into the director’s chair to film the third installment of Marvel’s “Deadpool” movie. The Hollywood Reporter broke the news on Friday afternoon, to the delight of fans who have been waiting to see a third installment to the popular comic book character created by Rob Liefeld.

This marks yet another collaboration with “Red Notice” star Ryan Reynolds. The two had previously teamed up for 2021’s “Free Guy” comedy and Netflix’s “The Adam Project,” which became available to stream on Netfli together.

Fans are excited to see Shawn Levy give his take on the “Deadpool” film series. The first film, released in 2016, was directed by Tim Miller. The 2018 sequel was headed by David Leitch and brought on Josh Brolin as Cable and Zazie Beetz as Domino. There is currently no release date scheduled for “Deadpool 3.”

Wendy Molyneux and Lizzie Molyneux-Logelin, known for writing for the Fox animated series “Bob’s Burgers,” are writing the script for this movie.  Frequent collaborators of Ryan Reynolds, Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, wrote the scripts for the first two films.

THR reported that the “Deadpool” films are the top-grossing “X-Men” films of all time, with the original film bringing in $783.1 million. The sequel did slightly better, earning $785.8 million worldwide.

This will be the first “Deadpool” film following Disney’s acquisition of 20th Century Fox, which released the first two films. The first two “Deadpool” films are still not available on Disney+, although Disney did announce plans to move its Marvel Netflix titles, like “Daredevil,” “Jessica Jones,” and “The Defenders,” to Disney+.

In an earlier interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Levy asked what it was like to work with Reynolds. When asked about the funny cameo videos to advertise “The Adam Project,” Levy revealed that Reynolds is very hands-on with this work.

“Ryan is a fountain of creativity and a true marketing savant. You haven’t seen the last of his comedic promos for Adam Project. There are a few others coming down the pipeline that are incredibly funny and clever,” he said. “He just has that superpower. So when he gets ideas, he’ll pitch them to me and to the studio.”

“There have been ones where I’m like, ‘Yeah, that’s funny, but they’ll never let you do it,’ i.e., Korg and Deadpool watching the Free Guy trailer. But then he’ll make a few calls and he’ll get it done,” he continued. “The thing that people don’t realize about Ryan is that he’s not one of these movie stars who hides behind a wall of agents and representatives. He picks up the call, and he makes the call. He rolls up his sleeves and does the work to get s--- done. And that’s very much how I do my job, which is another reason why we hit it off so instantly.”

Levy joked that their “bromance was well in bloom” by the time that they saw the script for “The Adam Project.”

“We were in post-production on Free Guy, and our bromance was well in bloom by the time we wrapped Free Guy,” he joked. “So Ryan and I sent out word to a lot of different agencies and studios that we were looking to collaborate again.”

“And [producer] David Ellison went to Ryan and said, ‘We have this script that’s been sitting in development for eight years, and it’s about a guy who goes back [in time] to revisit his younger self and his parents, who are the same age as him.’ Ryan instantly knew that it’s the kind of emotional theme that I love most, and he pitched it to me,” he continued. “We both read the Jonathan Tropper script, and within a few days, we raised our hands, linked arms, and were diving in.”

The teaser opens on a 12-year-old boy named Adam, played by Walker Scobell. He’s struggling with the loss of his father (Mark Ruffalo) and getting into trouble at school, which is causing his mother (Jennifer Garner) a great deal of concern.

One night, a strange man (Ryan Reynolds) enters his house. He knows his way around the house, he has the same scar, and he’s wearing his late father’s watch. Adam quickly realizes that he is talking to himself… from the future.

Reynolds explains to his younger self that “This world, our world, everything has already been changed” and they need to team up to “put the genie back in the bottle.”

“The Adam Project” is now available to stream on Netflix.