I Bet You Missed The Two X-Men Movie Callbacks In Deadpool & Wolverine's Opening Credits Scene

Warning! This article contains spoilers for Deadpool & Wolverine.

Summary Deadpool & Wolverine's opening credits feature the former character dancing to NSYNC's "Bye Bye Bye" while fighting off TVA soldiers.

The dance sequence pays tribute to X2 and Deadpool 2, showcasing the film's unique blend of humor and ability to reference prior films.

The NSYNC dance in Deadpool & Wolverine serves as more than just a joke due to the X2 and Deadpool 2 links by connection to past Marvel movies and honoring the legacy of the superhero genre.

Deadpool & Wolverine’s opening credit sequence is causing a stir online, while secretly hiding two X-Men callbacks. Although a lot of focus has been placed on Deadpool & Wolverine’s climactic ending, the rest of the film has proved to be causing discussion too. Be it the many Marvel cameos in Deadpool & Wolverine or the ties the film has to the overall MCU, the third installment in the Deadpool franchise is undoubtedly one of the most exciting Marvel movies since Spider-Man: No Way Home.

The list of upcoming Marvel movies will surely be attempting to replicate this as the franchise looks to return to the consistent box office success it had pre-Avengers: Endgame. However, the Deadpool franchise has a distinct edge over its peers in this regard thanks to the meta, self-referential humor it possesses that allows it to appeal more to mass audiences via Easter eggs to pop culture. Where Deadpool & Wolverine is concerned, no sequence highlights this more than the opening credits, which also happens to hide two callbacks to the Fox X-Men movies that sum up the themes of the film.

Related Deadpool & Wolverine: 100 Marvel Easter Eggs & References Explained Deadpool & Wolverine quite literally has over 100 different Easter eggs, references, and cameos galore. Here are all the ones we found.

Deadpool & Wolverine Opens With Deadpool Dancing To NSYNC’s “Bye Bye Bye”

Deadpool's Dance Number Is As Meta As It Gets

The opening sequence in question is the dance number Deadpool has to NSYNC’s “Bye Bye Bye.” Shortly before Deadpool & Wolverine highlights the former traveling the multiverse to search for a variant of the latter, there is a hybrid action-dance sequence. The sequence sees Deadpool using the adamantium-covered bones of Wolverine's dead body from Logan to fend off a horde of TVA agents, while NSYNC's "Bye Bye Bye" accompanies the bloody action.

The dance sequence in Deadpool & Wolverine also addresses the main worry from before the film came out: whether it will impact Logan's ending.

From the inventive ways the film depicts Deadpool murdering TVA agents to the dance itself, Deadpool & Wolverine's opening has been the subject of praise online. No other MCU movie in the entire franchise can say it possesses a gruesomely R-rated dance number to an NSYNC classic. As alluded to, this perfectly sums up the style of humor the Deadpool franchise offers, yet also offers subtle callbacks to prior X-Men movies.

Deadpool & Wolverine Knows What Franchise It Is Part Of

More so than being an action-packed, hilarious opening to Deadpool & Wolverine, the NSYNC dance number features the payoff to two forgotten X-Men jokes. The first comes from X2: X-Men United and links to a scene in which Wolverine, Rogue, Iceman, and Pyro are driving in Cyclops' car away from the X-Mansion. Pyro states that he does not like uncomfortable silences and turns on the radio. NSYNC's "Bye Bye Bye" begins blaring, causing Wolverine to physically recoil at the sound. Naturally, Deadpool & Wolverine has the former dance along to a song the latter has been shown to dislike in X2.

The second reference to a past Fox X-Men movie relates to Deadpool 2. Deadpool 2 had a varied soundtrack, with director David Leitch and Ryan Reynolds wanting a song that tied to the emotional core of the film. The song was Céline Dion's "Ashes," which was satirical of prior Hollywood blockbusters using emotional songs for similarly emotional moments in respective films. In the music video for "Ashes," Deadpool makes an appearance and exchanges heated words with Dion before uttering "God, I should've asked NSYNC."

Why Deadpool & Wolverine's NSYNC Dance Isn't Just A Joke

Deadpool's Dance Conveys The Core Themes Of Deadpool & Wolverine

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While it would be easy to brush off Deadpool's NSYNC dance as a joke to lure audiences into the movie with a fun, comedic opening, it actually is much more than that. The two references to prior X-Men movies prove this, with the payoff for both signifying Deadpool & Wolverine's main theme. Despite many assuming Deadpool & Wolverine would lean heavily into the MCU and completely disregard any previous Marvel franchises that did not come under Marvel Studios' banner, the film quickly made it clear that it was the opposite.

Choosing NSYNC's "Bye Bye Bye" links to the movies that came before Deadpool & Wolverine, conveying the theme that the film will be honoring past Marvel movies...

Deadpool & Wolverine is instead being dubbed a love letter to the Fox universes like X-Men, Fantastic Four, and Elektra, as well as other forgotten Marvel franchises like Blade. The film featured references to these franchises and cameos from major characters that did not get the ending they deserved, or even a beginning concerning Channing Tatum's Gambit appearance in Deadpool & Wolverine. This was solidified in Deadpool & Wolverine's end-credit sequence, which saw production reels from the various forgotten franchises in question play out, accompanied by Green Day's "Good Riddance."

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With Deadpool & Wolverine's love letter nature in mind, the NSYNC dance takes on an entirely different context. It would have been easy for Reynolds and his writing team to find another song for Deadpool to dance to that had the same impact. However, choosing NSYNC's "Bye Bye Bye" links to the movies that came before Deadpool & Wolverine, conveying the theme that the film will be honoring past Marvel movies. For what could have been any song with an iconic dance number, the decision to choose NSYNC for Deadpool & Wolverine's opening proves how dedicated the writers were to upholding the legacy of a bygone superhero era.