Patrick Stewart is hinting at a substantial role for Charles Xavier in the upcoming Wolverine film (and last run for Hugh Jackman as the title character). As we noted back during Comic-Con, the film will apparently follow the Old Man Logan storyline from the comics, with a few choice changes made due to rights issues with Marvel and it’s crop of characters.
That’s possibly where the rumors about Charles Xavier entering the fray come from and Stewart talked a bit about the possibilities of his entrance into the film with Screen Rant while promoting Blunt Talk:
“They are in the middle of filming. I went up to pay them a visit in Montreal a couple of weeks ago… the next X-Men movie, but that will be inhabited by Jennifer Lawrence and Michael fassBender and James Mcavoy. The X’s, not Ian Mckellen and Patrick Stewart. Um, but there is, I am told, a Wolverine movie in development that would include Charles Xavier, but in a very different Charles Xavier than the one we have seen before. And I don’t quite know what that means, but I am very very excited about it. I love Hugh and I love working with him and James Mangold I believe is set to direct and he is terrific so we shall see.”
So a very different Charles Xavier could mean quite a few things. The folks over at Ain’t It Cool News seem to think it implies that Xavier will replace the old, blind Hawkeye as Logan’s running buddy in the post-apocalyptic wasteland United States, but I feel like it could mean a different role.
To raise cash and dodge eviction, Logan takes a job helping a blind Hawkeye on a cross-country journey to deliver a mysterious package to a destination back east.
Now the bad news is most of the characters in Old Man Logan are not controlled by Fox, so unless some sort of deal can be worked out between Fox and Disney, the movie won’t be able to utilize Hawkeye, Red Skull or Kingpin. Also, I think Universal might still have some control over the use of Hulk outside of the Avengers movies. So a lot would probably have to change.
And that’s where Xavier comes in. Stewart’s Fox-owned character could substitute for Hawkeye as Logan’s travelling companion in the tale.
Now anybody can play the running partner and anybody can fill the minor villain roles from spot to spot in the universe, but who is our big bad going to be? Having it be Magneto makes little sense since Magneto is always a big bad, and it can’t be one of Wolverine’s rogues because he’s running close to empty in the film universe. So what about Xavier?
We’ve seen Xavier play a villain before in the books with Onslaught, so is it possible he plays some stripped down version of this in the Red Skull role from Old Man Logan? Strip away his good guy image, possibly combine him with Magneto’s point of view, and it gives the final Wolverine movie a villain that matters more than most. Of course, this could just be crazy talk.
Either way, it would seem that Xavier is coming back for the film and he’s going to be involved in the final Wolverine tale in some capacity. We’ll just have to wait to find out exactly what’s going on.
(Via Screen Rant / Ain’t It Cool News)
