Before Disney’s 2019 acquisition of Fox, the studio was working to spin off the success of the Deadpool films, which are among the highest-grossing R-rated movies of all time. Post-Deadpool 2, Fox intended to create a film based on the X-Force property, even attaching Drew Goddard, writer of 2011’s Cabin in the Woods, to the project. This film was going to follow Deadpool 2‘s ending, in which Wade Wilson created the X-Force team. But after the merger, any progress on the film was halted, and the Deadpool franchise was integrated into the MCU with Deadpool & Wolverine. Now, new details about that scrapped project are emerging thanks to Deadpool creator Rob Liefeld.
Speaking with The Direct, Liefeld confirms that Josh Brolin would have reprised his role as Cable and introduced Stryfe, who would have been the villain X-Force would face.
“I think I think it’s safe to say, Josh [Brolin] was really excited, because he signed a multi-picture deal, and he was excited about the prospect of not only playing Cable, but longtime fans of X-Force know that he would have been portraying Stryfe as well,” he said.
Stryfe, who won’t be appearing in X-Men 97, is a clone of Cable, Scott and Madelyne’s son from the future, whom the Askani Tribe created as a contingency plan in case Cable died. But this Cable clone was taken by Apocalypse to serve as his host body, only to be abandoned by the villain after a major defeat. Stryfe went mad after learning he was a clone and began his villain arc. Liefeld revealed that Stryfe was absolutely the villain of the future X-Force movies, with talks that the villain would have appeared in Deadpool 2.
“The X-Force movie that was going to be coming to screen that Fox had planned before Disney bought the Fox catalog; he was absolutely in that movie,” he said. “Spoiler alert! It would have been great… There were, at one point, discussions about him being in an after-credits scene in ‘Deadpool 2’, but they struck that.”
Liefeld added that Brolin was extremely excited to play Stryfe, as would have gotten to flex playing two sides of the same coin—the good of Cable and the evil of Stryfe.
“But no, Josh [Brolin] told me, ‘The opportunity to portray those two characters, the two sides of the coin, being the good and the evil, was something he was really excited about,” he said. “But I mean, again, in respect to Josh, there’s a possibility he has moved way beyond.”
There aren’t any details on what Stryfe would have been doing in this potential X-Force film, but using the comics as a guide, it is possible that the story would involve Stryfe’s creation of the Legacy Virus, a deadly disease targeting mutants. Cable and Deadpool, along with other X-Force members, like Domino, would have worked together to defeat Stryfe and save mutantkind while poking fun at the X-Men for not helping.
Unfortunately, the future of X-Force at this point isn’t particularly clear. The chances of Drew Goddard working on an X-Force movie after his success in adapting Project Hail Mary and his current work on The Matrix 5 are extremely low but not zero. It is possible that, with the current MCU resurgence and Marvel’s plans for the X-Men, Goddard or any creative could revive these dead plans for an X-Force film, or even leverage Josh Brolin’s attachment to the character and franchise to have him resurface as Stryfe or Cable in future X-movies of the MCU. What is clear at this point, however, is it sounds like fans could have had a very cool X-Force story. Things just didn’t work out that way.
