Back in August after G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra opened to around $100 million (it grossed $300 million in total worldwide) Paramount vice chairman, Rob Moore, confirmed that a sequel would soon go into development. This was followed by the hiring of Zombieland writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick in January, however there has been no word on whether Stephen Sommers would return to direct.

Well according to The Wrap, he is.

Plot details are currently unknown but producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura revealed that filming on the sequel will likely take place early next year, with the aim of a summer 2012 release. Sommers’ return suggests we can expect more of the same, i.e) a fun dumb summer popcorn movie. Writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick may bring something new to the table but I doubt we will get anything above average from the director of Van Helsing.

Channing Tatum is the only cast member confirmed at the moment, although most of the cast have options in their contact so we could be seeing the majority of them returning.

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MTV recently got the chance to speak to Zombieland writers Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese who will be in charge of bringing Deadpool to life on the big screen. They were only hired last month, however are already outlining the film and have been developing it on a near-daily basis with Ryan Reynolds.

“We just absolutely adore the character and the comic,” explained Wernick. “And tonally, it’s right up our alley. He’s the unstable, smart-ass, self deprecating guy — and they say write what you know, so [we’re perfect for it].”

“What’s great about Ryan is that he’s been the keeper of the Deadpool flame for many years, he’s loved the character since forever; he lives it and breathes it,” Reese said of some of the specific ideas Reynolds has brought up to them. “We’re a little newer to Deadpool, although we’ve done a bit of catching up. One of the nice things about working with Ryan is that he tonally gets it — if we ever do something that is off the Deadpool path, or if it doesn’t feel like Deadpool, he catches it.”

“The movie is going to kick ass,” Wernick said, confident of the end result of their collaboration. “It’s going to be great.”

“It’s not going to be your father’s superhero movie, or even your older brother’s superhero movie,” added Reese. “It’s definitely going to be irreverent and fun, and we owe a lot to that character, because it’s a wonderful character.”

It’s great to see the writers have the same amount of enthusiasm as Reynolds. Obviously its early days yet, however I think Deadpool has the potential to be a fun, cool superhero movie. Over recent years the genre has started to get all dark and serious, but I think Deadpool (along with Kick-Ass) will give us a break from that.

We’ll get a better indication of what to expect when they hire a director, which should be sometime this year depending on how the scripting progresses.

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Last month Ryan Reynolds said that they were having meetings with a number of potential Deadpool writers, “all of which had amazing and slightly disparate takes from one another”. Now 20th Century Fox and the producers have decided that Zombieland writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick will be the guys to write the script.

From Variety:

20th Century Fox is making progress with its “X-Men” spinoff, “Deadpool,” and has tapped “Zombieland” scribes Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick to pen the screenplay.

There is no timetable on the Marvel property, though Reynolds has a window after wrapping the “Green Lantern” this summer.

Reese and Wernick, who wrote “Zombieland,” will stay true to the mythology of “Deadpool” given that Reynolds is a huge fan and protector of the property.

The tone of “Deadpool,” which features an antihero as opposed to the more traditional heroic comicbook protagonist, is very similar in tone to “Zombieland.”

Reese and Wernick also wrote the script for Venom before Gary Ross came on-board to make it his own, so they are no strangers to comic book territory. However Deadpool will be a bit different to the films we have seen so far as it will be breaking the 4th wall. Deadpool will be talking directly too the audience, so Reese and Wernick will have to make sure it works without it coming across as cheesy or laughable.

One positive aspect, though, is that they won’t have to take into account any events that took place in X-Men Origins: Wolverine (which would have been kinda difficult considering the character was decapitated).

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In April Venom spin-off writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick said that they’ve handed in a draft of the script to Sony and were waiting for feedback, however they couldn’t reveal any details for obvious reasons. Now SHH managed to speak to them again and they did reveal one thing. Stan Lee will be making an appearance in the film.

“Oh, yeah. Stan Lee is in it,” Reese told us. “I feel like that’s the one thing we can say. He does appear in our script, and we’re very specific about where he is and why. May he live forever. Let’s hope he’s in many movies to come.”

Stan Lee has been making cameos in Marvel films ever since the first X-Men movie back in 2000, so we can expect him to keep this tradition up for many years. I imagine he’ll be popping up in Thor, Captain America and The Avengers, even if he wasn’t directly association with the characters during his comic book career.

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