In retrospect, the box office success of the off-kilter "Deadpool" seems like a no-brainer. And with the sequel officially on the way, the film's writers promise to continue the first film's tradition of "breaking the rules."

In a recent interview with Heat Vision, writers Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese explained how things are different, more of the same, and just as enjoyable as they have always been while working on "Deadpool 2."

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"We haven't had the leash taken off this time, because the leash was never on the first time," Reese said of his and Wernick's approach to drafting the anticipated sequel. "The studio didn't ask us or force us to take out a single joke in that first movie. They never questioned anything we did. And that has remained the case. I don't think we feel necessarily any more free than we did, because we were already free."

"What's nice is Deadpool exists in his own universe. He's part of the larger 'X-Men' universe, but in a way he isn't," Wernick said of how the sequel may - or may not - address the timeline conundrum of previous X-films. "He interacts with that world but he is in the present. We don't deal with the '60s or the '70s or the future. It's here and now. More than anything, I think he's going to have his fun with what they do in the other franchise. But fortunately, we don't have to play by those same rules."

"Deadpool is a movie that did break all the rules," Wernick added. "I think we're going to continue to break those rules. That involves knowing that he's in a movie, talking to the audience, breaking that fourth wall, a characteristic that they established so brilliantly in the comics way back when. So yeah, I do think that timelines are something that we can make fun of and don't have to be slave to."

Directed by David Leitch (“John Wick”), the “Deadpool” sequel will once again star Ryan Reynolds, joined (so far) by Brianna Hildebrand as Negasonic Teenage Wasteland, Karan Soni as Dopinder and, presumably, Stefan Kapičić as the voice of Colossus. The film is targeted for release on Jan. 2, 2018.