When Hugh Jackman was announced to be returning in the third Deadpool film, the reaction from many Marvel fans was mixed.
Whenever an actor announces they’re returning to an iconic role, it’s a worry - especially when they’ve left things on such a perfect note.
In the case of Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine, that couldn’t be more true.
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Jackman redefined the role of Wolverine, leaving a whole generation of Marvel fans thinking of him when they think of Logan.
Not only that, but in Logan, Jackman achieved an incredible feat of the best movie of the entire run, with that character being his last – with a deeply satisfying ending.
According to interviews, however, we are not the only people worried about disturbing the ending of that film – Marvel boss Kevin Feige also shares that concern.
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In an interview with Empire, Feige shared some advice he’d given Jackman: “I said, ‘Let me give you a piece of advice, Hugh. Don’t come back’,”
The MCU chief said that Jackman 'had the greatest ending in history with Logan’, and that 'that’s not something we should undo'.
This was something Feige was eventually convinced of – with the executive saying in recent interviews that ‘[they] are very conscious about maintaining the integrity of [Logan] in what we've done with 'Deadpool & Wolverine’.
The question then arises of how this is possible due to Logan's ending.
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For those who don’t remember, the Wolverine from the 2000s X-Men films canonically dies in Logan in an emotional ending to the movie.
Though they are yet to outright confirm it, the trailers basically confirm that the Wolverine we see in Deadpool and Wolverine isn't the one from that universe.
In multiple trailers, Matthew MacFadyen’s character says: “This Wolverine let down his entire world”.
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Whilst his exact role isn’t confirmed, MacFadyen plays a character in the TVA (Time Variance Agency) organisation introduced in Loki.
This agency ‘prunes’ rogue multiversal elements, and their involvement in the film not only hints towards how Deadpool has made it to the MCU from the Fox X-Men universe, but that the Wolverine in the film isn’t the same one.
When discussing how they would fit the character into the film, Ryan Reynolds told Vanity Fair: “Initially, we had a very loose idea of how we would bring Wolverine back in ways that don’t necessarily interact or interfere with Logan and that legacy.
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“I know Kevin [Feige], like Shawn [Levy, director of Deadpool 3] and I and Hugh, were all very concerned about that.
"We really needed to protect that and still allow us to tell the most full-throated Wolverine story we could ever imagine, which for us was just a huge nerve-wracking privilege.”
Whilst it may not be confirmed yet, all signs appear to be pointing towards the Wolverine in Deapdool 3 being one from another universe.
If you ask me, that’s the biggest sign I could possible imagine that this film is going to stick the landing – by steering clear of trying to outdo the ending to Logan.
Topics: Hugh Jackman, Marvel, Deadpool, Kevin Feige, Film and TV, Deadpool and Wolverine
Michael Slavin