deadpool

Deadpool and Wolverine is probably heading toward a billion dollar box office haul when it releases in July, but of all the endlessly rumored cameos we appear to have one that’s been shot down completely. And it’s really bad news, if you ask me.

That would be the idea that Dafne Keen would reprise her role as Laura from 2017’s Logan, now grown into the X-23 of comics fame. We know there are references to Logan in the film, which the movie is not making non-canon, so it seemed like a great time for her to show up, but she has just confirmed that she isn’t via an interview with On Demand Entertainment:

While she says that “It’s sad…I love Hugh Jackman…Ryan Reynolds is a legend … It would’ve been amazing to be a part of it,” she confirms that she won’t be, presumably because “they’re not gonna mess with Logan’s timeline,” as she says. But it does appear the Wolverine in the movie is definitely not Logan/FOX Wolverine, so clearly there was some way this might have worked. It’s Deadpool and the multiverse, you can literally do anything. But I suppose you only have so much space in 2+ hours for guest appearances.

Fans were hoping that a grown-up Laura would appear as X-23 in the film, perhaps even with a suit now. Keen is 19 now, and was 11 when she debuted in Logan. That’s certainly old enough to be taken seriously as a badass superhero, but it’s not happening. Unless…she’s lying. Maybe she could be lying? I sort of doubt it though, and other rumored cameo people have sort of deferred their answers rather than denying it. Josh Brolin said something similar to Keen here when he lamented that he wasn’t coming back as Cable.

But don’t cry for Keen. She is about to make a splash with a role as a Jedi in The Acolyte, which premieres this Tuesday. In the show she plays Jecki Lon, a young Jedi, a half-human, half-Theelin apprentice to Master Sol, one of the main stars of the series played by Squid Game’s Lee Jung Jae. Early reactions to the series are positive, and they better be, given that it reportedly took $180 million to make.

It would have been cool to see Keen as X-23 in Deadpool, but you can sort of understand why she may not have been included, and I really don’t want anything to touch the sanctity of Logan, though again, with the multiverse this could have been an alt-universe Laura or something, so nothing would have needed to be messed up. Oh well.