Spirited: Ryan Reynolds on Deadpool Christmas Movie That Never Was

There’s no secret that Ryan Reynolds is ever the opportunist when it comes to shameless self-promotions and cash-ins, which includes the holidays. While promoting his holiday musical Spirited, based on Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol,” the actor revealed he was working on a script with Deadpool franchise writers and frequent collaborators in Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick for a Christmas-themed movie that was never produced.

“I would love to see a song-and-dance number in a Deadpool movie,” Reynolds told Big Issue. “Four years ago, Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick, and I wrote a Christmas movie starring Deadpool. But it got lost in the shuffle of Disney acquiring Fox, and it never got made. Maybe one day we’ll get to make that movie. It’s not a musical, but it’s a full Deadpool Christmas movie. So one day.”

Reynolds experienced a career renaissance when he got his second chance in rebooting Deadpool for a 2016 live-action adaptation for 20th Century Studios. Its success spawned a 2018 sequel in, Deadpool 2. Following a more sanitized PG-13 holiday rerelease in the rebranded Once Upon a Deadpool, concerns were raised over the creative status of the third film with Disney’s 2019 acquisition of Fox. Aside from reassuring fans that it will retain the franchise-staple R-rating, Marvel Studios also dropped a major bombshell getting Wolverine actor Hugh Jackman to unretire from the role following his last outing in 2017’s Logan.

Sadly, fans of the Merc with the Mouth will wait almost two years for Deadpool 3 as Marvel has set the release for November 8, 2024. Not only will Reynolds be reunited with his X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) co-star, but he’ll also be working with his frequent collaborator in director Shawn Levy, the most recent were Netflix’s The Adam Project and 20th Century Studios’ Free Guy. Spirited, which also stars Will Ferrell, Tracy Morgan, and Octavia Spencer, is available on AppleTV+.