Matthew McConaughey, like pretty much every star in Hollywood, has long been linked to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He was reportedly in talks to play Doctor Strange in the 2016 film of the same name, before the role ultimately went to Benedict Cumberbatch. (Cumberbatch ended up leaning into the “Doctor” part of the character; we can only assume that McConaughey would have gone hard on the “Strange.”) He turned down the role of the villainous Ego, the “Living Planet,” in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, which led to Kurt Russell making his MCU debut instead. He’s professed a desire to play the Incredible Hulk, one of Marvel’s most frequently recast heroes—though Mark Ruffalo, who took over the role from Edward Norton (who himself took over from Eric Bana), shows no signs of relinquishing the part of the jade giant.
All of those, of course, are significant roles befitting an Oscar-winning star of McConaughey’s stature. But his actual first Marvel role is rather less central to the story of the film in which the character appears: McConaughey has a brief cameo in Deadpool & Wolverine as the voice of Cowboy Deadpool. Light spoilers for the film follow.
So, who is Cowboy Deadpool? As anyone familiar with the convoluted continuity of superhero movies can probably guess, even attempting to answer that question requires a fair bit of background. So grab a drink, and we’ll walk you through it.
[Deep breath] Deadpool & Wolverine, like many of the Marvel movies immediately preceding it, is a multiverse story. The Deadpool films take place in Fox’s X-Men universe, not the Marvel Cinematic Universe, though following Marvel parent company Disney’s acquisition of 20th Century Fox, in 2019, the line between the two has blurred; other characters from X-Men have made brief cameos in films such as Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and The Marvels as their protagonists explore the multiverse. In Deadpool & Wolverine, the titular heroes end up in “the Void,” a part of the MCU introduced in Disney+’s Loki series, where characters who’ve slipped into the wrong part of the multiverse are imprisoned. While there, it’s revealed that Deadpools from countless timelines frequently end up in the Void, to the point where there’s a full regiment of mercenary Deadpools called the Deadpool Corps. When the small army of villains decked out in red-and-black pervert suits face down our heroes, among their number are Lady Deadpool (Blake Lively), Floating Severed Head Deadpool (Nathan Fillion), Child Deadpool and Baby Deadpool (star Ryan Reynolds’s real-life kids), Dogpool (Peggy), and, of course, Cowboy Deadpool. McConaughey gets off a single line as the two sides ready their confrontation, and then—well, with the film projected to gross somewhere in the neighborhood of $180 million during opening weekend, we expect you’ll find out for yourself soon enough. [Exhales]
So does this foreclose the possibility of McConaughey joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe in a more substantial capacity? Not in the slightest; Marvel has shown a willingness to reuse its actors in the past, and that’s especially true when multiverse shenanigans are involved. The rumor mill linking Mack to Marvel can keep on churning, and given that the franchise is likely to subsume all of Hollywood before either it ends or the heat death of the universe occurs, we’re sure McConaughey will make a proper appearance when the time is alright, alright, alright.
