Hugh Jackman retired Wolverine, the character that made him a household name, with 2017’s Logan. Or did he? The answer is he did before he decided to un-retire him. It was recently revealed that Jackman would dust off his X-Men aggro superhero for Deadpool 3, which reunites him with his faux-feud-ee Ryan Reynolds for the first time since the first solo Wolverine picture. But the team-up was long in the works — and it really started when Jackman sat down to watch the first Deadpool.
“I was 20 minutes in, and I was like, ‘Ah, damn it!’” Jackman told Variety (in a bit teased out by The AV Club). “All I kept seeing in my head was ‘48 Hrs.’ with Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy. So it’s been brewing for a long time. It just took me longer to get here.”
Deadpool came out in earlyish 2016, at which point, Logan — which [spoiler] ends with Wolverine given a proper send-off (i.e., he eats it) — was already in the works. That said, the start of principal photography was still a few months off, so Jackman could have rallied for an ending where the character doesn’t eat it. Or he could have done what he did and bide his time before returning.
Reynolds has been trying to get a Deadpool-Wolverine mash-up going for the last three-plus years, ever since the Fox-Disney merger happened. Alas, it wasn’t possible until recently, though it’s not been made public why not.
Jackman, though, is stoked to return. “A little part of me now thinks I’d be better at it,” Jackman told Variety. “Is that arrogance of age or something? Wolverine’s a tortured character — more tortured than me. But I always get the feeling of him being comfortable in his own skin. And I feel more comfortable in my own skin now, even though it’s messier.”
(Via Variety and The AV Club)
