After spending many, many years in development hell, Deadpool proved itself to be a monster hit. While

there were some doubts surrounding the film, specifically the R-rating, it wound up being a big success with critics while also becoming the biggest domestic hit in the X-Men franchise. Naturally, a sequel is on the way, and already we’ve learned about one key character who will be joining the madness. So what is Deadpool 2 going to be all about?

going to be all about? Who is going to be involved? What characters will be returning? How will it connect to the larger X-Men universe? We’re going to go over all of that in this latest edition of our What We Know So Far guides! Read on to learn everything about the highly anticipated sequel.

SPOILER WARNING : The following article contains major spoilers for Deadpool . If you haven't seen the film yet, you may want to click away to another one of our wonderful articles.

Deadpool 2When Deadpool 2 was first confirmed in a trade report, it mentioned that star Ryan Reynolds would be returning to star in the sequel, and that screenwriters/producers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick would be back holding the pen. The only name left out of the equation was director Tim Miller – though it was noted that it’s expected 20th Century Fox will make a deal to bring the filmmaker back for the follow-up.

Tim Miller first signed on to direct Deadpool back in April 2011, and it was his feature directorial debut. While he might be new at that particular game, he has tremendous industry experience as the founder of the visual effects company Blur Studios. It was Miller’s resources in this capacity that allowed the creation of special test footage that was ultimately leaked and led to Deadpool getting the green light.

While Tim Miller hasn’t been officially confirmed as the man at the helm of Deadpool 2 yet, it would be a big surprise if he didn’t return. A great deal of the first film’s quality directly stems from the love for the character possessed by Miller, Ryan Reynolds, Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, and it would be a shame to break up that team.

Deadpool 2In this day and age, the first solo movie a comic book character gets is dedicated to the origin story. While it’s a bit tired at this point, it does make a good degree of sense given that it’s the best way to introduce these super characters to a wider audience. This was the approach taken by Deadpool as well, as the movie told the non-linear tale of how mercenary Wade Wilson went through experimental treatments to cure his cancer and wound up with incredible healing abilities and a revenge mission. Now that that’s all out of the way, however, there is an infinite number of possibilities for screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick to explore in Deadpool 2 .

Because the project is in such an early stage, we really don’t know anything about the official plot of the sequel, but one significant presence has been confirmed: Cable. The muscly, giant gun-toting mutant has co-starred in many comic series over the years, the most significant being Fabian Nicieza’s "Cable & Deadpool" from 2004 (which is pretty hard to succinctly explain, given that it involves a giant floating city, some strange techno-virus side effects, and bizarre teleportation). It’s unclear if Deadpool 2 will be any kind of direct adaptation of a particular arc, or if it will be an original story.

Deadpool 2

Deadpool

Thanks to Deadpool , now you all know the legendary story of the motor-mouthed, psychotic Wade Wilson (played by Ryan Reynolds). In hopes of continuing a life with his one true love, he chose to undergo experiments that would cure his cancer, and turn him into a superhero. Instead, the skin all over his body became incredibly scarred (making him incredibly self-conscious), and his incredible healing factor left him invincible and immortal. At the end of the movie we saw him get sweet, bloody vengeance against those who tortured him, and reunite with his love… so what’s next?

Having been one of Marvel Comics’ most popular characters of the last 20 years, there is plenty of material from which Deadpool 2 can draw – and some of them are very, very strange. In his time on the page, the Merc With The Mouth has saved the world from aliens that wish to rid the Earth of free will, stopped a horde of zombified former American presidents, and even found occasion to travel around the multiverse to kill every single version of himself in existence (or at least one version of Deadpool did). As Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick confirmed to Cinema Blend , fans shouldn't expect things to get too weird or complex, but given the characters involved, we should at least expect some degree of bizarreness.

Cable Deadpool 2

Cable

Cable could be easily described as being one of the more complicated characters from the history of Marvel Comics. First introduced in 1986, he was established as the child of Cyclops and Madelyne Pryor (a clone of Jean Grey), and due to machinations involving Apocalypse and Mister Sinister was infected with a deadly techno-virus. With no other options available to save the young Nathan Summers, it was agreed that the child would be sent to and grow up in the future, where a cure would be available. Being a mutant with incredible telekinetic and telepathic abilities, he grew up to be incredibly strong (taking on the name Cable) and eventually time traveled to the past in order to try and right the world and prevent a horrific future.

As confirmed in the post-credits sequence of Deadpool , we can expect Cablein Deadpool 2 to exist with a few of his classic attributes – including a flat top, a bionic arm, and a history of time travel – but that’s really where all the information we have draws to an end. Deadpool himself provides a wide suggestion of actors who could play the part, including Mel Gibson, Dolph Lundgren and Kiera Knightley, but there are certainly many more stars being considered. For example, Avatar villain Stephen Langhas already thrown his hat into the ring; and Deadpool co-creator Rob Liefeld has suggested Jon Hammfor the part.

Deadpool and Cable have been characters associated with one another from the very start, as Deadpool’s first appearance in "New Mutants #98" featured the mercenary on an assassination mission to kill Cable. Now we’ll finally see them together on the big screen in live-action.