Fox’s Scrapped ‘X-Force’ Movie Would Have Given Josh Brolin a Wild Double Role, Creator Reveals

Superhero movie history is full of tantalizing what-ifs, and few franchises have more of them than the X-Men universe. Between studio mergers, shifting creative visions, and characters caught in limbo, fans have spent years piecing together what could have been before Disney’s acquisition of Fox reshaped the entire mutant landscape.

One of the biggest casualties of that transition was a planned ‘X-Force’ film, a spinoff that seemed like the natural next step after ‘Deadpool 2’ set up the team in its final act. With Drew Goddard attached to direct and Josh Brolin locked into a multi-picture deal as Cable, the project looked primed to become one of Fox’s most ambitious mutant movies yet before everything came to a halt.

Now, Deadpool co-creator Rob Liefeld has revealed exactly who was meant to anchor that scrapped film as its main villain: Stryfe, a clone of Brolin’s Cable. Speaking with The Direct, Liefeld confirmed that Brolin would have taken on a dual role, playing both Cable and his villainous doppelganger in the unmade movie.

According to Liefeld, Brolin was genuinely enthusiastic about the opportunity to play both sides of the story. “I think it’s safe to say, Josh was really excited, because he signed a multi-picture deal, and he was excited about the prospect of not only playing Cable, but longtime fans of X-Force know that he would have been portraying Stryfe as well,” Liefeld told The Direct.

In the comics, Stryfe is a clone of Nathan Summers, better known as Cable, created by the Askani Tribe as a contingency plan should Cable ever die. Apocalypse later took the clone as a host body before eventually discarding him, an origin that sent Stryfe spiraling into madness once he learned the truth about his own existence.

Liefeld also revealed that Stryfe’s presence in the franchise almost happened even sooner than the planned ‘X-Force’ film. “The X-Force movie that was going to be coming to screen that Fox had planned before Disney bought the Fox catalog; he was absolutely in that movie,” Liefeld told The Direct, adding that there had even been early discussions about giving Stryfe an appearance in ‘Deadpool 2”s post-credits scene before those plans were scrapped.

That post-credits moment ultimately went in a different direction, focusing instead on Deadpool tinkering with Cable’s time-travel device to alter the timeline and save Vanessa. Brolin’s Cable hasn’t reappeared on screen since, sitting out ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ entirely, though rumors have persisted that Ryan Reynolds hopes to bring the character back for a future MCU project.

With Disney’s acquisition of Fox in 2019, Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige took creative control over the X-Men franchise, and the Goddard-directed ‘X-Force’ film never moved forward. Marvel is instead building its own version of the mutant universe from the ground up with a fully rebooted ‘X-Men’ film currently in production.

Given how much attention Marvel’s mutant plans have generated over the past year, it’s easy to see why fans are still mourning what this scrapped ‘X-Force’ project could have delivered. A double dose of Brolin facing off against himself as hero and villain sounds like exactly the kind of chaotic energy that made ‘Deadpool 2’ such a hit in the first place.

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