The official soundtrack for Deadpool & Wolverine has confirmed that one particular Hugh Jackman movie will be referenced in what might be a joke spoiler in the next MCU movie. Deadpool & Wolverine is days away from being released on July 26, and marketing efforts have kicked into overdrive in the lead-up. With a flurry of brand tie-ins – including the most recent reveal of a “Cheeky” controller design for Xbox – and new footage that gives a closer look at more Deadpool variants, the movie has just released yet more details about what audiences can expect.
This has come in the form of the official Deadpool & Wolverine track listing published on Twitter/X, which includes The Greatest Showman‘s flagship song, “The Greatest Show.”
The track sits alongside a litany of decade-spanning pop tunes consistent with the road trip movie vibe that Reynolds’ had initially envisaged for the Deadpool sequel. Exactly when or how this track is set to play in Deadpool & Wolverine is decidedly unclear at this stage, but raises the question of how the MCU can use the song in the first place.
How Deadpool & Wolverine Can Reference The Greatest Showman
The Movie Was Released By 20th Century Fox In 2017
Despite what the movie’s upbeat musicality might suggest, The Greatest Showman is not a Disney production. Instead, the movie was released in 2017 by 20th Century Fox, the same studio that produced the X-Men series of movies that will also feature heavily in Deadpool & Wolverine. It should therefore come as no surprise if the smack-talking Deadpool relishes the chance to equate Wolverine to an upbeat musical, given Fox was bought by Disney, which now also owns the rights to The Greatest Showman. The same is presumably also true for the soundtrack.
The Greatest Showman is a musical biopic centered on the heavily dramatized life of real-life figure PT Barnum, with Hugh Jackman in the starring role.
“The Greatest Show” will more than likely come as part of a wider joke at Wolverine’s expense. While The Greatest Showman is a beloved movie in its own right, boasting a soundtrack that made significant waves in worldwide charts, it is easy to see how much this particularly gruff version of Wolverine contrasts Jackman’s PT Barnum in the musical. It is far less likely that Wolverine will acknowledge the reference, however, as most characters seem to treat Deadpool’s fourth wall breaks as moments of incoherence.
It would also be par for the course for Deadpool, who explicitly referred to Josh Brolin’s Cable as “Thanos” in Deadpool 2, as Brolin was simultaneously portraying that MCU villain. Despite being a Fox-owned movie at the time (which is why Brolin could portray two Marvel characters at once), Deadpool’s Thanos reference was likely permitted by Disney as it was simply a fun throwaway line. Given “The Greatest Show” has pride of place on the Deadpool & Wolverine soundtrack, however, it appears Deadpool might savor his The Greatest Showman reference a little more.
