Prior to Disney's purchase of 20th Century Fox's entertainment assets in 2019, Josh Brolin was one of the few actors with a foot in the MCU and in the X-Men-related films. Brolin portrayed Thanos starting in 2014's Guardians of the Galaxy before playing Cable in Deadpool 2 in 2018. Given Cable's connection to Deadpool, it was largely assumed that Brolin would at least make an appearance in Deadpool & Wolverine. But during his recent appearance on The Playlist's Bingeworthy podcast, Brolin expressed his disappointment that he won't be coming back.

"I so wanted to be in that movie," said Brolin while promoting the second season of his Prime Video series, Outer Range. "[Marvel] is a more complex labyrinth than Outer Range will ever be, my friend... And I will never know where that went or what that is or what I’m involved with or what I’m not involved with--the MCU being involved now. Cable was a lot of fun. I really liked doing that role. That was a lot of fun."

Regardless of being left out of the sequel, Brolin expressed his admiration for the film's stars, Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman.