Ever since the billion and billion dollar success of Marvel and their shared universe franchises, other companies with superhero property rights have been jumping on the train. This year alone saw Sony and 20th Century Fox lay out their plans for their own Cinematic Universe’s, with The Amazing Spider-man 2 and X-Men: Days of Future Past. The latter being extremely successful and opening a world of storytelling possibilities.

Since the unbelievable Days of Future Past from Fox and the return Bryan Singer to the X-Men Franchise, all news has been somewhat quiet on that front. We have known for a while that a sequel titled X-Men: Apocalypse is well on its way, but following that movie we don’t really know what’s going to happen.

We heard a while back that the X-Men producers want Channing Tatum to portray Gambit in a solo movie and hopefully in future X-Men films. We’ve speculated and rumored about recasting of the trio of Jean Grey, Cyclops, and Storm for these new movies, and we’ve all talked about Hugh Jackman as Wolverine just as we have for the past half decade. But still nothing, it’s all blank by my count, which is surprising after what Days of Future Past did.

But now we have official word following the absolutely incredible news that Fox will be moving forward with a movie on the Merc with a Mouth. We’ve been waiting for an announcement like that since he showed up in that horrid Origins: Wolverine movie, because he’s one of the all time favorites. But once the announcement came, the next big question was whether or not he would be included in the X-Verse alongside his fellow mutants. But now it’s official, he sure as hell will be! And 100% deserves to be.

X-Men: Days of Future Past writer/producer Simon Kinberg had this to say about the matter:

“There’s definitely a sort of overall plan that we’ve all been talking about for the ‘X-Men’universe now, and ‘Deadpool’ obviously fits into that. So yeah, I guess I would say it’s part of certainly an overall timeline and thought process that goes into these films, some of which is inspired by the comics and some which is inspired by seeing what Marvel’s done with telling a larger tapestry and linking all those movies together, even as they stand independently as well. The same kind of thought is going to go into these ‘X-Men’ movies at Fox.”

It seems like a no-brainer for Fox. In my mind, it would be a total tragedy if he wasn’t included in this universe. He’s a fan favorite, he’s completely different than any character that the X-Verse has so far, and the character has the second best casting choice in Ryan Reynolds, right behind Hugh Jackman of course. Now the question to be answered is where he fits in the timeline, in the 80s or 90s where Apocalypse will land or more present day -ish with that team of mutants? Because we all know that these movies don’t need anymore continuity issues.

While more on this will develop over the next few months, this sits extremely well for the future of the X-Men franchise. Seems like Fox has put together a damn good team to bring this universe full of the beloved mutants to life. What are your thoughts of Deadpool being in a shared universe with the future X-Men movies? Comment below!