Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 very nearly brought fans one step closer to a unified Marvel movie multiverse.

During a Facebook live video Q&A today, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 director James Gunn revealed that he nearly included an in-universe shoutout to the Deadpool movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe film.

The moment would have come during Stan Lee's cameo in the movie. As is, the cameo reveals that Stan Lee is a single character of cosmic stature who appears across the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 cameo scene, Lee specifically references his time as a FedEx employee in Captain America: Civil War. However, Gunn says that wasn't alway the reference Lee made. While filming the scene, Gunn shouted out several of Lee's past cameos for Lee to use for the line, including the time that Lee was a DJ at a strip club, which was how Lee appeared in the Deadpool movie.

Gunn notes that the reference would have been especially fun because it would have acknowledged 20th Century Fox's X-Men movies universe. He did not say why that reference wasn't used in the film's final cut, leaving fans to speculate whether Marvel Studios shot the idea down or if it simply wasn't the best version of the scene. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 currently has an 87.80 ComicBook.com Composite Score, the third-highest ComicBook.com Composite Score for a comic book movie of all time. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 also has a 4.65 out of 5 ComicBook.com User Rating, giving it the highest ComicBook.com user rating among all comic book movies. Let us know what you thought of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 by giving it your own ComicBook.com user rating below.