When Deadpool & Wolverine, starring Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman, made $438m worldwide on its opening weekend, Marvel executives must have felt as if Christmas had come early. It is Easter, though, that deserves part of the credit: Easter eggs, that is, those fan-centric surprises with which the modern blockbuster is sprinkled, or in this case cluttered.
They take many forms: unpublicised cameos, in-jokes that only franchise devotees would clock, surprise scenes stowed away in the end credits, abundant references to other movies, even allusions to controversies on the sets of other movies. The Easter eggs in Deadpool & Wolverine belong to all these categories and more. There are so many, in fact, that it’s tempting to ask: which came first, the movie or the eggs?
