With Deadpool, we don’t just get movies. We get full meta experiences. He breaks the fourth wall. He appears in unique ads that would be lost to time were it not for the internet. He even appeared in a humorous video that played ahead of advance screenings of Deadpool 2 this week. If you love the character, you have the opportunity to enjoy a lot of his jokes — all exclusive to the marketing — outside of the actual feature films.
One such piece of the promotional pie is the Deadpool 2 press kit. This is a 33-page packet of paper with an original cartoon poster on its cover (gotta love the Canadian-accent nod to Back to the Future there), a special introductory message from “the desk of Thurston Deadpool III, Esquire,” and a whole lot of amusing bits to describe the making of the sequel and to profile its main characters, cast, and crew members.
It’s not available to the public, but Fox has given us permission to share some of its joys. You’re welcome.
1. Explaining the press kit
In Deadpool’s special message, he congratulates us “extinguished members of the press” on being literate and tells us what we’ve got in our hands:
“The softest-headed among you might be wondering, ‘What is a press kit?’ Is it a mechanism for setting up a dry cleaners? Or a tutorial for bejeweling nails?”
“Where did the word even come from? Sadly, the one man who knew died in the Paraguayan Civil Unrest of 1864. His name was Milo. A horse fell on him. His final words were ‘Caramba!’ Which are of no help to us now.”
“For our purposes, a press kit is a way of bribing professional journalists with glossy insider information that they can keep in a desk drawer or sell on eBay when drugs become expensive. I’m kidding. Nobody’s selling Deadpool press kits on eBay. I checked. Just one guy in Germany, but that’s expected from the country that brought us World War One. And its sequel, World War Three.”
2. Why is there a Deadpool sequel?
We’re still in the intro here, because Deadpool can be a bit long-winded. He sets up why they went and made a follow-up to the first movie:
“As few as six years ago, if someone asked you about a Deadpool sequel, you would’ve looked at them like a dog looks at grapes (dogs don’t eat grapes, feel free to check, I’ll wait).”
“Back then, no one was asking for a Deadpool sequel, or prequel to the sequel, or even Doritos Tacos Locos for that matter. But here we are, millions of tickets and billions of tacos later.”
“People do love sequels. From The Great Muppet Caper to New Mexico, studies reveal audiences actually prefer a rehashed, watered-down copy to the original.”
3. Useless trivia
Spattered throughout the Deadpool 2 press kit are random fun facts that have nothing to do with the movie but provide some additional humor next to the more serious publicity material. Learn some things:
“Did You Know? More people are killed by hippopotamuses than by lions, elephants, and water buffalo combined.”
“Did You Know? 42% of men and 25% of women don’t wash their hands after using a public toilet (cough*Hugh Jackman*coughcough).”
“Did You Know? ‘Topolino’ is the name for Mickey Mouse in Italy.”
“Did You Know? A lobster’s blood is colorless but turns blue when exposed to oxygen.”
“Did You Know? The sentence ‘the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog’ uses every letter in the English alphabet.”
“Did you know? Over 2,500 left-handed people are killed every year from using right-handed products.”
“Did you know? The original formula for a popular soda brand (that rhymes with ‘Loca Lola’) contained cocaine — ironically, just like a girl I knew who was named Lola.”
4. The cartoons
Throughout the press kit, when we’re not getting little red boxes full of useless trivia, we get Deadpool’s crayon drawings of characters and plot points. While I can’t share the visuals here, I’ll describe them all to you:
– Deadpool standing atop a pile of dead bodies.
– A stack of bills with “$equel Money” written above it.
– Deadpool holding a sign that says “Cut the Cord” behind Cable’s back.
– Deadpool and Vanessa together with a heart around them.
– Blind Al saying, “Take the pity dick out of your mouth” (but “dick” is censored).
– Weasel saying, “They probably won’t make a three…”
– Domino, Negasonic Teenage Warhead, Firefist, and Dopinder (with cab), each also get their own solo drawing.
– The X-Force team featuring Deadpool, Bedlam, Zeitgeist, Shatterstar, and Peter.
– Deadpool with bunny ears and running with a basket full of Easter eggs.
– Deadpool driving a scooter, sword in hand.
– Colossus holding Deadpool upside down by the leg.
– An unmasked Deadpool riding Professor X’s wheelchair.
5. The best quotes
As with any press kit, the one for Deadpool 2 features quotes from the cast and crew discussing the movie. Below are the best of them, whether humorous or serious.
Julian Dennison (Firefist) on being too young to see all of Deadpool but contributing to the R rating of Deadpool 2:
“I skipped all the naughty parts [of Deadpool], but it’s still one of the funniest films of all time…[With Deadpool 2], I’m part of those naughty parts! I can’t wait for my family to see it; they’ll leave the theater going, ‘What have they turned my child into!?'”
Morena Baccarin (Vanessa) on David Leitch and the producers’ impersonal request for her to tackle one of her personal fears:
“One of my biggest fears is scuba diving. And they texted me: ‘How do you feel about getting in a large tank and doing underwater stunts?’ I replied, ‘This is not a texting conversation; this is more of a phone call conversation!'”
Zazie Beetz (Domino) on her costume:
“I love how she looks, but I don’t think people realize that wearing her outfit is massively uncomfortable. Every part of my body fought that suit. My knees and feet hurt, and it was hard to breathe. I did stunts with a boned corset on — there was no stretch; it was all leather, so there was no breathing. Everything was tight.”
Karan Soni (Dopinder) on his character’s coolest moment ever being his own coolest moment ever:
“[My favorite part] was the slow-motion superhero walk. We didn’t shoot it in slow motion, but when they played it back in slow motion, it was the coolest thing! It was like a dream moment. It’s the coolest I’ve ever looked.”
Brianna Hildebrand (Negasonic Teenage Warhead) on her character having a girlfriend:
“In the first one, I never thought I would be here now with a love interest, but it’s cool. It’s fun… It’s new for the superhero world. It’s exciting and empowering. Growing up, I would have loved to see a superhero I could relate to like that. It’s cool to be a part of that.”
Look for your own copy of the Deadpool 2 press kit on eBay one of these days. And go see Deadpool 2 in the theater when it opens on May 18th.
Related Topics: Deadpool
