On paper, there isn’t much overlap between Deadpool 2 and Marvel’s Avengers: Infinity War.
Sure, both can be considered blockbuster continuations of two wildly successful comic book movies, while they’re also targeting a similar demographic – even if David Leitch’s Deadpool sequel is skewing toward a more adult audience – but when you boil things down to plot and general story structure, Infinity War and the Merc’s second solo adventure couldn’t be more different.
There is one piece of connective tissue shared by the two comic book titans, though – and no, we’re not talking about a Stan Lee cameo. Instead, we’ll gently point you in the direction of Josh Brolin, whose Thanos and Cable will be causing all sorts of havoc over the next four weeks.
But because Infinity War and Deadpool 2 are opening in close proximity to one another – one glance at the calendar tells us that there are only three weeks separating each sequel – and therefore shared a similar timeframe in front of the cameras, Josh Brolin’s time on the Infinity War set was limited at best, as Benedict Cumberbatch tells Radio Times:
They used a stand-in for Josh. Josh wasn’t in there for much, he did his bit and then a lot of stuff with a lot of us and him was missing because, I guess, he was doing Deadpool 2 and I was doing Melrose and The Current War.
That’s a little disappointing when you consider Brolin’s Mad Titan has been championed as the undisputed protagonist of Avengers: Infinity War. Nevertheless, they made it work through a combination of stand-in performances and SFX wizardry.
Cumberbatch concluded:
But we made it work. It’s often the case you can act with other actors anyways, in certain scenarios because of the amount of additional stuff you have to fit in with the environment or the magic or whatever it is that’s coming out of your hands or your ass.
Josh Brolin’s one-two punch of blockbuster villainy begins with Avengers: Infinity War on April 27th, before Deadpool 2 places the Merc on a collision course with Cable three weeks later.