‘Member how stories were circulating that a third Deadpool movie would actually be the long-planned X-Force movie? We ‘member. Well, you can scratch that, for writer Rhett Reese has moved to confirm that Deadpool 3 and X-Force will be completely separate pictures.

20th Century Fox has been planning X-Force – a movie based around the mercenary-heavy comic book mutant team of the same name – for years now, yet the film seems to have been stuttering through development hell for the majority of that time. Considering that the Merc with a Mouth himself, Deadpool, is a member of the X-Force team, plus how Deadpool 2 is introducing Cable and Domino – both also members of the team – rumours suggested that Deadpool 3 would essentially be the X-Force movie we’d been being promised for years. That’s definitely not the case, though.

Speaking to Cinema Blend, Reese explained, “I also think Deadpool 2 is working in an expansive way towards X-Force, which will really be more of an ensemble. But then that will allow us to do both an X-Force movie and a Deadpool 3, which actually contracts back down… I think we’ll be able to take two paths. One is where we’re launching something bigger, but then another where we’re contract and staying personal and small. So I think best of all worlds, really.”

At the last word, longtime X-Men franchise producer and writer Simon Kinberg suggested that X-Force will end up being an R-rated effort, following in the footsteps of Deadpool and Logan. Before that, or before Deadpool 3, of course, is Deadpool 2. To be directed by John Wick’s David Leitch, that film is currently set for a to-be-confirmed 2018 release.

Where the rest of the cinematic X-verse is concerned, the next installment in the main X-Men series – tentatively titled X-Men: Supernova – is set to start shooting towards the end of the year, then there’s the prospect of The New Mutants finally happening, and still even some hope that the Channing Tatum-headlined Gambit will manage to finally go into production at some point.