Thank heavens, Hugh Jackman is back playing Wolverine again.
The Australian actor has become synonymous with the part, one he first played over 20 years ago in X-Men.
It was announced that when Ryan Reynolds joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) as Deadpool, he would be bringing Jackman with him in Deadpool and Wolverine.
The film, Reynolds' third official outing as Deadpool (I’m simply not counting X-Men Origins, you can’t make me), releases later this month - and will be the debut of both actors in the MCU.
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While the movie may seem a no-brainer to approve from the moment you hear of the concept, the big boss of Marvel actually had a specific condition for allowing the return to happen.
Kevin Feige, the president of Marvel Studios, not only had a certain request for Jackman’s return - he actually advised the Wolverine star against it.
In an interview with Empire, Feige shared that he had given Jackman advice - and told him not to come back.
Feige said he told the actor: “Let me give you a piece of advice, Hugh. Don’t come back.
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“You had the greatest ending in history with Logan. That’s not something we should undo.”
While he undeniably had one of the greatest endings to a long-played character in Logan, Jackman’s return to the role isn’t quite as the same character.
With the MCU leaning into multi-versal funkiness, it has been confirmed that Jackman will be playing another version of Wolverine, leaving Feige and fans safe in the knowledge that the version played in Logan remains untouched.
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This has been confirmed in interviews, as well as the trailers - where Matthew MacFadyen’s character says: “This Wolverine let down his entire world.”
His character is a member of the Time Variance Agency introduced in Loki, further pointing towards this being a totally new Wolverine.
With this in mind, there was one request from Feige.
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Speaking to a theater in Shanghai where early footage of the film was shown, Deadpool and Wolverine director Shawn Levy said: “He [Feige] said, 'Yes, but he wears the yellow. Can he finally wear the yellow?'”
As already shown in the trailers, Jackman will indeed finally get to wear the legendary yellow suit from the comics.
Jackman’s role in the X-Men films may be iconic, but the suits were aggressively 2000s, with Fox deciding to put them all in black leather suits instead of their comic accurate ones.
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While the post-credit scenes of The Wolverine hinted at a film with Jackman in the yellow suit, this was not paid off in any way until Deadpool and Wolverine.
Thank you Kevin Feige, because it looks fantastic.
Deadpool and Wolverine hits theaters on July 26.
Topics: Deadpool, Film and TV, Hugh Jackman, Kevin Feige, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Deadpool and Wolverine
Michael Slavin