‘Deadpool 2’ Almost Included Black Tom Being Beheaded

A behind-the-scenes featurette included on the Deadpool 2 home release reveals an even more gruesome fate intended for Ice Box prisoner Black Tom Cassidy (Jack Kesy).

A blink-and-you’ll-miss-it reveal in the ‘David Leitch Not Lynch: Directing DP2‘ special feature shows Kesy’s Black Tom near a beefy prisoner, who ends up holding Black Tom’s dread-sporting and freshly-decapitated head in his hands.

The character — a full-fledged villain in the X-Men comic books, where he was affiliated with Charles Xavier’s step brother Cain Marko, the near-unstoppable Juggernaut — is a little-seen bully in Deadpool 2. During his time in the super-max mutant prison, Cassidy is seen antagonizing the jailed and powerless Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds) and Rusty Collins (Julian Dennison), and is among the prisoners on board the transport convoy later attacked by time traveling would-be assassin Cable (Josh Brolin).

Deadpool clashes with Cable in close quarters on the convoy, and Cassidy is immediately killed when Cable accidentally shoots him in the head.

“Black Tom was just in the movie as a supervillain who has incredible powers and all sorts of stuff. It was the f—ing studio that said, ‘You guys are over budget, you can’t afford this,” star and co-writer Ryan Reynolds told the Empire Film Podcast.

“So his whole storyline got trimmed way back and Jack Kesy, who played him, is such a sport and stayed on in the role.”

The 12 Strong and Death Wish actor stayed on as Cassidy despite the downsized role, and lived on through a running gag that emerged out of Cable’s supposed “racism.”

“I called Jack and I was like, ‘Jack, I hate to tell you this, man: we’re cutting out most of Black Tom.’ And this was before we shot, so I said to him, ‘If you want to play the role still it’s like three or four days’ work. Obviously, if you want to duck out, I totally understand,’” Reynolds said.

“He was like, ‘No, no, I’m in.’ He was so sweet to do it, because he’s an amazing actor. So Black Tom Cassidy — we did end up using his name for kind of a running joke in the movie where Deadpool falsely accuses Cable of being racist — and you know, we sort of thought that was somewhat ridiculous, so why not?”

Another famed X-verse character, Omega Red, was similarly excised from the final cut. The scene featuring the villain mutant is included on the home release.

Deadpool 2 is now available to own digitally ahead of its August 21 disc debut.