[Spoilers for Deadpool 2 appear below.]
Of the original X-Force members in Deadpool 2, only three survived: Deadpool, Domino, and thanks to some time-traveling trickery, Peter. Bedlam (smashed into a bus), Zeitgeist (fed to a wood chipper), Shatterstar (turned into mush by helicopter blades), and Vanisher (electrocuted and fried to a crisp) did not fare so well, leaving an X-Force opening for Cable, played by superhero movie all-star Josh Brolin. He wasn’t the first actor to be rumored to portray the cybernetic, teddy bear-carrying mutant, though. That would be Brad Pitt, who has an extremely brief cameo in Deadpool 2 as… Vanisher. How meta.
Pitt was “incredibly interested in the property,” according to director David Leitch (“One of the Guys Who Killed the Dog in John Wick“), but “things didn’t work out schedule-wise. He’s a fan, and we love him, and I think he would’ve made an amazing Cable.” The SE7EN star settled for a one-second appearance as Vanisher, who up to that point had been invisible, when he hits a telephone wire. Pitt agreed to the part because he’s friends with Leitch (his stunt double in Ocean’s Eleven and Fight Club) and because he and his kids love Deadpool.
“I think it was a love of Deadpool and sort of what that sort of global phenomenon that it was,” Leitch said. “And his kids loved it… When we reached out to him to be involved in the movie in some way, I think he was pretty excited to find someplace where he could help. When we landed on the Vanisher cameo, it seemed perfect for everybody.” He added that it only took “about four or five minutes” to shoot the scene, which was filmed in front of a green screen.
The cameo also continues Pitt’s war with Matt Damon, who recently appeared in Thor: Ragnarok as “Loki,” to see who can unexpectedly show up in the most random movies. Damon is forever in the lead, though, thanks to EuroTrip. And as it turns out, Damon (and Alan Tudyk) may have donned prosthetics to play one of the redneck characters that Cable encounters early in the film, but that detail has yet to be fully confirmed.