A lot of Marvel news leaks in advance these days, but the announcement that Deadpool 3 was becoming a Deadpool and Wolverine team-up movie — with Hugh Jackman back in his signature role several years after he made his “final” appearance as the character in Logan — was a real shock. Jackman was previously adamant that he was done playing Wolverine, and Logan was a pretty conclusive ending to his story. Plus, Jackman’s X-Men movies were made by Fox, and with Marvel now controlling those properties and characters, it looked like the company was ready to bring in a whole new cast to portray their mutant heroes.
Obviously, things have turned out a little bit differently than that. And the behind-the-scenes details of this surprising project are now coming to light via a new interview with Jackman and Ryan Reynolds in Variety. Jackman says he fully intended Logan to be his final appearance as Wolverine — at least until he went to watch the first Deadpool movie. He said…
I went to a screening of Deadpool. I was 20 minutes in, and I was like, ‘Ah, damn it!’ 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.
Reynolds has supposedly been trying to get Jackman to join him for a joint sequel for years and years, but Jackman was the one who was hesitant for a very long time. (Jackman claims Reynolds bugged him “on the daily” about it for a while.) After Disney acquired Fox and reclaimed the movie rights to the X-Men, Reynolds had a meeting with Marvel’s Kevin Feige about the future.
Way back then, Reynolds was trying to make the Deadpool/Wolverine movie happen. “The subject was coming up in the meeting about if we could find a way to do a Deadpool-Wolverine pairing,” Reynolds said. “It wasn’t possible then. For this to be happening now is pretty damn exciting.”
Deadpool 3 (which Jackman warns is not the final title for the movie) is scheduled to open in theaters on November 8, 2024.
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