Hey, Marvel, I’m not telling you how to run your business. You’ve obviously done a very good job of that for many years, but as a superfan who gets unreasonably excited about dumb fantasy castings, I feel like this needs an article. Jason Momoa was at Celebrity Fan Fest in San Antonio. He was asked which MCU character he’d most like to play, and he picked Wolverine. Here’s his answer…
I'd love to play Wolverine... (Hugh Jackman) was phenomenal. I grew up just loving Wolverine.
Now, there’s nothing legally in most people’s contracts that prevent them from playing two different superheroes for two different companies at the same time. So, I appreciate the excitement you can hear from fans in this clip shot by Jeremiah Marshall from KRIS. In practicality, though, it doesn’t happen very often. Recently, Zachary Levi went from a bit player in the Thor universe for Marvel to the lead in Shazam for DC, and while he was perfect for the latter role, that didn’t stop some fans from being a bit weirded out.
What exactly is happening with the future of Wolverine is a bit unclear. Hugh Jackman played the role to much fanfare for almost twenty years, but following 2017’s Logan, he announced he would step away. The character wasn't included in Dark Phoenix, but he’s obviously too central to the X-Men to never be seen again. So how exactly he’s re-introduced is going to be a topic of much conversation at Marvel.
Then again, how exactly the X-Men will be introduced to the MCU is a hot topic of conversation too. Dark Phoenix has gotten ummmm less than stellar reviews, and the fan response hasn’t exactly been glowing. Even apart from Dark Phoenix, the larger franchise is at a crossroads right now because of Disney’s purchase of Fox. Now is the time for the folks behind the MCU to start asking larger questions about how separate or united the X-Men and MCU franchises should be. Wolverine is at the heart of that.
I highly doubt Jason Momoa will end up as Wolverine. That would probably too weird to ever be seriously considered, but it’s interesting to think about for a lot of reasons as one of two possible ways forward. When Marvel does bring Wolverine back, would it be better and more accepted if the content production studio went with a complete unknown who could disappear into Wolverine or would it be better and more accepted to grab a major star like Jason Momoa who would bring some buzz with him?
I prefer the Jason Momoa approach, mostly because the last thing in the world I want to see is someone doing a lame impression of Hugh Jackman playing Wolverine. A Momoa Wolverine would be nothing whatsoever like Hugh Jackman’s version, and that’s incredibly appealing to me. So, someone CC Marvel on this answer. If not the actor himself, this general route of going with a huge name that looks and speaks in a completely different way than Jackman is a great path forward.
As for Momoa himself, no one needs to be sweating any concerned bullets over his career. Many actors spend their entire runs hoping to find a single role in a long-term project that fans will embrace. Jason Momoa has not had that problem. He went from Baywatch to Stargate: Atlantis to Game Of Thrones to the DC Extended Universe. He’s also landed a role in the upcoming Dune adaptation. So, whether he ends up as Wolverine or not (the answer will be not), his life is going pretty well.
