Though the sequel X-Men: Days of Future Past is gearing up to begin production next month, another long-promised X-Men spinoff film continues to linger in development hell.  Fox has been working on a Deadpool movie for what feels like an eternity now, and the last thing we heard about the project was a rumor that the studio had shot 8-minutes of test footage for the proposed pic.  That was over a year ago and we haven’t had any significant updates in the interim.  Ryan Reynolds remains attached to star, but the hurdle for the studio is greenlighting a hard-R superhero movie in which the protagonist frequently breaks the fourth wall.

Reynolds recently gave a bit of an update on the project, saying that “it’s sitting there” and discussing the difficulty of getting the go-ahead from Fox for such a unique film.  The actor also addressed how the Deadpool spinoff would handle the character’s appearance in X-Men Origins: Wolverine.  Hit the jump to see what he had to say.

Reynolds recently appeared on Empire’s podcast, in which he discussed the status of the Deadpool film:

“I love Deadpool and there is a script that’s in development. But it’s so, so far into the R-rated zone… it’s a nearly NC-17 world and I just don’t know if the studio would ever risk their reputation doing it. We’ve been developing it and we would never wanna do it unless you could it that R-rated way, so…[The script has] got a similar tone [to Zombieland], almost. [Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick] wrote it and they developed it as well and, you know, it’s sitting there. You could do it for a pittance compared to the modern sort of epic scale superhero movies, but it’s about a guy who knows he’s in a movie and knows he’s in a comic book who is deeply mentally disturbed and hyper violent. And that’s tough to get by a studio."

This is essentially the same thing we’ve been hearing for the past few years, but it’s still disappointing to see that Fox hasn’t found a way to get this thing moving yet.

The standalone film also presents a bit of a conundrum for the character, though, since Deadpool had a bit of an odd role in the underwhelming X-Men Origins: Wolverine.  Reynolds talked about how the new film would address Wolverine:

"I don’t think you can [fit it within the Deadpool story from Wolverine], because that character would really sully that whole world. The script is one rewrite away from Deadpool jumping across the desk at the studio executive and attacking him… But I’ve always wanted to do the movie just if only because Deadpool would get to do his own movie trailer. So that’s a thing that we were dying to do and we would love to be a part of that. I don’t know how it would fit though, no. In the current iteration of the script, it doesn’t address Wolverine – though it does address Deadpool’s appearance in Wolverine. Deadpool was not happy with Deadpool in Wolverine. He has a sort of a WTF!? moment with that."

So it sounds like Reese and Wernick’s script pretends like the events of Wolverine didn’t happen in canon, but it still addresses the film in the way that only Deadpool can.  This script really sounds like a lot of fun and I sincerely hope it gets made someday.

You can listen to the full Empire podcast below.  Reynolds comes in around the 48:50 mark.