'Deadpool 2' screenwriters break down the movie's biggest Easter eggs and cameos

From Brad Pitt as Vanisher, to Matt Damon as a redneck with a lot to say about toilet paper, “Deadpool 2” has some major cameos. And the screenwriters have a simple answer for why: once you’re making a successful franchise, everyone says "yes."

“We got a fair amount of people saying 'no' last movie,” Wernick said. “This one, it was 'yes' across the board. It was a real treat for us.”

And for the audience, too (if you caught them).

Pitt shows up in the blink of an eye when mutant Vanisher accidentally glides into power lines due to the rough winds, as X-Force does its skydive to rescue the young mutant Russell. “Deadpool 2” director David Leitch told Business Insider that getting Pitt was a combination of Pitt’s kids loving the first movie, an ask by Reynolds, and Pitt knowing Leitch from the days when he was the actor’s stunt double.

Damon is even harder to catch in the movie. He’s completely unrecognizable as one of the men Cable encounters when he shows up in the present day from the future. Damon is the redneck in back of the pickup truck talking to his friend about toilet paper. Reese and Wernick said it was a chance encounter with Reynolds that led to Damon getting in the movie.

“I think they were at some event together and Matt was telling Ryan how much he loves ‘Deadpool,’” Wernick said. “We were in the process of writing the script and around that time Rhett had written this fantastic diatribe about toilet paper. Ryan told Matt about it, Matt said to send him the pages and he just fell in love with it and told Ryan he would do it.”

And the yeses kept coming. Reese and Wernick said Hugh Jackman approved the footage used in the post credit sequence from “X-Men Origins: Wolverine,” and the footage of “Yentl” is in the movie thanks to Barbra Streisand — with an assist from her son-in-law Josh Brolin, who plays Cable in the movie (Brolin’s father, James Brolin, is married to Streisand).

“We actually wrote all the Streisand and ‘Yentl’ stuff before we cast Josh,” Wernick said. “So once Josh came aboard it became a lot easier. We said to him, ‘Hey, do you mind picking up the phone?’”

When Deadpool decides to try and be part of the X-Men, his first assignment (as a trainee) is to stop Russell from wreaking havoc outside the orphanage he’s staying at. In the scene, a news crew shows up to cover the chaos and there’s a shot of news footage with a crawl at the bottom of the screen. If you look at the right moment, you’ll see the text in the crawl read: “Christopher Plummer turns down role in ‘Deadpool 2.’”

It’s a recognition of the #MeToo movement that was in full throttle toward the end of the movie’s post production. The Plummer joke also seems to reference one of the movie's stars, T.J. Miller, who has been accused of sexual misconduct (Reynolds said Miller will not be in the upcoming “X-Force” movie).

But Reese and Wernick are not taking ownership of the joke. In fact, Wernick didn’t even know about the Plummer line until Business Insider told him.

“I thought that was hilarious,” Reese said. “I don’t know who put that in, probably David Leitch or one of the editors.”

Turns out Reynolds’ on-set gag for Josh Brolin didn’t work out the way he planned.

In the scene where Deadpool is recovering from his fight with Juggernaut at Blind Al’s apartment (the baby legs scene), Reese and Wernick said the shirt he’s wearing is the same style navy blue zipper-up sweatshirt Brolin’s character Brand wears in “Goonies.” (Underneath that is another "Goonies" reference, as Wade is wearing a Hawaiian shirt that's similar to what character Chunk wore.)

“Ryan was hoping Josh would notice but they did the whole scene and he didn’t,” Reese said. “So at the end he pulled Josh to the side and said, ‘By the way, recognize this shirt?’ And Josh cracked up.”

The demise of Deadpool’s X-Force in the middle of the movie is as shocking as it is hilarious. A big reason for that is because of the marketing muscle put behind the gag. The forming of X-Force was put in the trailers, TV spots, and posters.

“If you can’t do it in a regular superhero movie you definitely can do it in a ‘Deadpool’ movie, that’s our rule of thumb,” Wernick said of doing the X-Force gag. “We went for it and marketing played along. Yeah, they were always worried that people are going to feel cheated but I think it’s so outrageous and funny and unexpected that audiences just ate it up.”

But what about Rob Liefeld, the creator of the Deadpool and X-Force comics? What did he think when he saw his creations drop one by one?

“We told Rob, ‘There’s this time machine that allows us to go back and resurrect anybody,'” Reese said, referring to Cable’s device that allows him to time travel. “We told him just imagine that Shatterstar got resurrected at the end of the movie but we didn’t show it.”

End credit scenes in superhero movies have become almost a requirement now, but “Deadpool 2” took it to another level. Thanks to Cable’s time travel device, Deadpool goes back in time to set some things right.

He saves Vanessa and X-Force member Peter from being killed. He also goes back and kills the infamous version of Deadpool that’s in “X-Men Origins: Wolverine,” and kills Reynolds before he agrees to sign onto “Green Lantern.”

But there was one scene that was shot and didn’t make the final version: Deadpool killing baby Hitler.

“There's a nursery in Austria in the late 1800s and a nurse walks out of the room and Deadpool sneaks in and there's a little bassinet that says ‘A. Hitler’ on it and he goes in for the kill,” explained Reese. “It was really funny and yet it made test audiences a touch squeamish because even if it's Hitler, it's a baby, and seeing Deadpool strangle a baby in the very final shot of your movie, it just left people feeling a little squeamish. So we decided to go out on the ‘Green Lantern’ joke.”

However, if you really want to see Deadpool kill baby Hitler, Reese and Wernick said the bit will likely be a deleted scene on the Blu-ray.