Deadpool 2 Writers Break Down the Mid-Credits Scene

SPOILERS for Deadpool 2 ahead.

Deadpool 2 writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick have revealed how the sequel's mid-credits scene came together. The first Deadpool movie included a memorable post-credits scene that riffed on Ferris Bueller's Day Off's famous coda and confirmed that Cable would be making his big screen debut in the followup. In an effort to top that, Deadpool 2 features a mid-credits sequence where Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds) uses Cable's newly repaired time-travel tech to go back in time and "fix" some issues with his own cinematic timeline.

Reese and Wernick have already confirmed that some of their more outrageous ideas for Deadpool 2's credits scene - like having Chris Evans as the Human Torch interview to join X-Force and especially Deadpool traveling back in time to kill baby Hitler - simply never made it past the spitballing stage of development. Ultimately, the writers decided to get extra meta (even by The Merc With a Mouth's standards) with the scene and, at the same time, reverse the death of a key character from earlier in the film.

During an interview with CBR, Reese and Wernick revealed that Deadpool 2's mid-credits scene wasn't shot until after the film's initial test screenings. Reese explained that this is now common practice for the franchise, as the filmmakers "generally like to look at the whole movie and see how it plays out" before deciding on a credits sequence. He and his fellow creatives then started to pitch ideas for the credits scene before settling on having Deadpool kill not only himself in X-Men Origins: Wolverine (stitched mouth and all), but also Reynolds the actor just as he's about to read the script for his infamous Green Lantern movie:

Long story short, when it came down to it, someone had the idea for the time machine, and we just thought, “Oh, that’s just too classic.” How meta can it be when Ryan Reynolds is going back in time to stop previous Ryan Reynolds from taking the Green Lantern movie? When Ryan had that idea of the Green Lantern bit, because he’s so willing to make fun of himself, we just lost it. We thought, that’s the funniest idea ever, and what a great idea to end the movie.

More importantly from a storytelling perspective, Deadpool also uses Cable's tech in the mid-credits scene to resurrect his girlfriend Vanessa Carlysle (Morena Bacccarin) following her death at the beginning of the film. Reese admitted that "We originally did not save her" and told CBR that Deadpool 2's test audiences were largely okay with the decision:

Her story has a beginning, middle and end, so I feel like while we do kill her in the first act, we do keep her “alive” throughout the movie, with the afterlife. Again, as it was in the first one, that relationship really is the emotional core of the movie. We feel like the audiences weren’t cheated of that relationship, because despite her death, it travels through.

Vanessa's death has been fairly criticized in Deadpool 2 reviews as an example of "fridging", e.g. a female character being killed to serve a male character's arc. The film tries to have its cake and eat it too in this sense; first by having Deadpool frequently visit Vanessa in the afterlife and then by having him literally save her life during the credits. It's open to debate whether Deadpool 2 is subversive or not in this respect, but either way it means Baccarin can return in future Deadpool sequels and the X-Force spinoff.

Reese and Wernick confirmed that Deadpool 2's mid-credits scene is canon during their CBR interview, and added that Baccarin was "very thrilled" when she found out her run on the franchise wasn't over after all. The character is actually a shape-shifting mutant who goes by Copycat and joins the X-Force in the Marvel Comics, but it remains to be seen if the X-Force movie goes that route. However, now that Vanessa is alive and kicking once more, it's at least a legitimate possibility.