Among the many actors who have reportedly joined Wolverine 3 over the last several weeks is Narcos star Boyd Holbrook. Just like with the others, Holbrook’s character wasn’t revealed, but he was identified as the movie’s villain, a "relentless, calculating and intense" head of security for a global enterprise. Later information suggested that he might be an original character rather than one from the comics, but if a new report is correct, he’ll have assistance from a group of killers who did originate on the printed page: the Reavers.
According to Nerdist, Logan will battle the cyborg bad guys in Wolverine 3, a.k.a. Hugh Jackman’s last X-Men movie. They didn’t disclose how the Reavers would fit into the story, but taking this "global enterprise" into account, one can surmise they’ll be sicced on the metal-clawed mutant when he starts interfering in their business. We can’t see Boyd Holbrook’s character creating these killers, but they’re definitely right up the alley of Richard E. Grant’s mad scientist character.
In the comics, the Reavers were originally a group of cyborg thieves operating in Australia, but the survivors of this group (Bonebreaker, Skullbuster and Pretty Boy) were later reorganized by fellow cyborg Donald Pierce into an assassination squad. Pierce also claimed to have created the Reavers, but this wasn’t confirmed. Their goal is to eliminate all mutants, but they have an especially big grudge against Wolverine. Because Wolverine 3 will be set in the future, the advanced technology allows the Reavers to be created (whether from scratch or augmenting existing people) as living weapons, assuming they really are involved in the story. If that’s the case, now the big question is what the deal is with this "global enterprise" they’ll come from. Is it a completely original company? Is it the Hellfire Club, another organization the Reavers were connected to in the comics that previously appeared in X-Men: First Class? Worst of all, will it be controlled by one of the powerful villains in the X-Men lore?
Warning: major spoilers for X-Men: Apocalypse are ahead!
Following the massive battle with En Sabah Nur and his Four Horsemen, the X-Men: Apocalypse post-credits scene showed a mysterious individual retrieving a sample of Wolverine’s blood from Weapon X and putting it in a briefcase labeled "Essex Corp." Essex refers to Nathaniel Essex, a.k.a. the super villain Mister Sinister. This implies (but hasn’t been confirmed) that Sinister will be Wolverine 3’s main villain, and if I had to guess, this is probably who Richard E Grant’s character is. Sinister is a notoriously unscrupulous geneticist, so he could easily replace Donald Pierce as the creator of the Reavers or just be the one ordering Pierce around. Either way, this might also offer more legitimacy to the rumor that Wolverine’s clone, X-23, will appear in the movie. She and the Reavers could be among this enterprise’s various experiments.
Wolverine 3 slashes its way into theaters on March 3, 2017.
