‘Deadpool 2’: Ryan Reynolds Explains the Jab at ‘Frozen’

There’s a real-life truth to the cheeky accusation made in Deadpool 2 concerning suspicious similarities between Barbra Streisand’s “Papa Can You Hear Me?” and Frozen‘s “Do You Want to Build a Snowman?”

“Ryan has a great ear for picking out when one song sounds too much like another song, where someone might have plagiarized somebody,” co-writer Rhett Reese said in the Deadpool 2 commentary track as Wade (Reynolds) and Vanessa (Morena Baccarin) watch the Streisand-starred Yentl. “So this actually came from you noticing, right, that the Yentl song…”

“I had watched Yentl on Turner Classic Movies a couple of weeks before, and I’ve watched Frozen 700 times with my daughter. Which is weird because Frozen is my favorite movie and Yentl is hers,” said Reynolds, who co-wrote the film with Reese and Paul Wernick.

“But I had noticed that the song, ‘Do You Want to Build a Snowman?’ and Yentyl‘s ‘Papa Can You Hear Me?’ sound suspiciously alike. [laughs] Some poor, hardworking songwriter’s gonna go, ‘What? I didn’t… I didn’t mean it.’ I know,” Reynolds added.

The jab aimed at the beloved animated Disney hit isn’t the only shot the R-rated Marvel adaptation took at the Mouse House, but the Frozen gag made it in — and Reynolds was forced to excise the other.

Reynolds has yet to reveal the joke so inappropriate he was forced to scrub it by Fox, the studio behind Deadpool 2, but told The Hollywood Reporter he ultimately understood the decision. But in conceding and trashing the joke, Reynolds did away with what he called one of his “favorite things in the movie.”

“As much as we laugh at Fox and poke fun at Fox, [vice chairwoman] Emma Watts has been a partner who has been in lockstep with everything we’ve done, every step of the way, all the way back to the first film,” he said.

“They’ve allowed us do stuff that I don’t think any other studio would allow us to do. So, conceding on this one thing was not the end of the world for me. We had a lot of other great, great moments in the movie. The ousted joke, whatever it was, ‘had more to do with Disney,’” Reynolds said, Reynolds agreeing its removal was a “wise decision.”

Both Disney and Fox have since approved Disney’s acquisition of the studio for $71.3 billion. The deal will bring Fox-controlled properties like Deadpool, X-Men and Fantastic Four into the shared Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Deadpool 2 can now be owned on Digital HD. It releases to 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray and DVD August 21.