Hey, remember when Hugh Jackman said that Logan would be the last time he’d play Wolverine? Psych! Ryan Reynolds has confirmed that Jackman will don the adamantium claws again for Deadpool 3, which is officially set to come out in fall 2024. Although Reynolds’ Wade Wilson had no shortage of Wolverine and Jackman jokes to throw out in the first two Deadpool movies, now the team-up that many fans have been waiting to see for years is becoming a reality!
Deadpool 3 will be Hugh Jackman’s 10th time playing Wolverine, and just like Ryan Reynolds with Deadpool, it will be the first time he’s playing the character in a Marvel Studios project. Reynolds straight up asked Jackman in the announcement video if he wants to play Wolverine “one more time,” so I have to think that this will truly be the Aussie actor’s final outing as Logan, although I’m not willing to put money on that given how adamantly he’d previously been about not returning to the role. Regardless, now that we know that Wolverine and Deadpool are finally joining forces properly on the big screen, these are the things I’m hoping that the Merc with the Mouth’s threequel will deliver with this team-up.
Specific Clarification About Which Wolverine This Is
This news about Hugh Jackman appearing in Deadpool 3 follows nearly a year after Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield in Spider-Man: No Way Home, and nearly five months after Patrick Stewart appeared as Professor X in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. In the latter case though, this was a Charles Xavier variant from Earth-838, not the Xavier we followed along with in the original X-Men movies. So then which version of Wolverine is appearing in Deadpool 3?
Will this be the “main” Wolverine who we followed along with for nearly two decades, or will this simply a Wolverine variant from a different universe who has a similar history as the “main” Wolverine, but with some notable differences? It’s important to mention that the day after the Hugh Jackman news came in, he and Ryan Reynolds appeared in a video where they said that Deadpool 3 is not “touching” the Logan ending since it’s set in 2029. That could indicate we’re getting the “main” Wolverine and seeing him prior to the events of the 2017 movie. Personally though, I’m leaning towards Deadpool 3’s Wolverine being a variant mainly because it less messy with regard to continuity, although let’s be clear, there were plenty of times when the X-Men film series messed up its own continuity.
Some Reference(s) To Hugh Jackman Retiring As Wolverine
Aside from his distinctive red and black costume, Deadpool is arguably best known for breaking the fourth wall, and Ryan Reynolds’ version of the character especially likes to poke fun at Hugh Jackman and Wolverine’s film appearances. We’ll talk more about Jackman and his other acting endeavors later, but as far as Wolverine goes, it’d be a disservice not to bring up all the times Jackman has said he would never play the character again.
To be fair, considering how Wolverine’s story ended in Logan, I don’t blame Hugh Jackman for considering that chapter of his career closed for several years. So whatever Ryan Reynolds did to convince Jackman to come back for one last ride must have been incredibly persuasive. Still, hopefully Ryan Reynolds and writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick throw in some zingers about how Jackman went back on his assurances, even though Wolverine will have no idea what Wade Wilson is talking about.
All The Jokes About X-Men Origins: Wolverine
We first saw Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine and Ryan Reynolds’ Wade Wilson share the screen in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. However, aside from being a little quippy towards the beginning of the movie, this version of Wade was in no way faithful to the source material, as he was later turned into Weapon XI, a freakish monstrosity with numerous mutant abilities and a mouth sewn shut. Origins is one of the more critically-derided entries in the X-Men film series, so much so that at the end of Deadpool 2, the more faithfully-adapted Wade went back in time to murder Weapon XI right before the 2009 movie’s final battle, as well as tell Wolverine he’d be back one day to tell him to “get back on the saddle” and put the claws back on.
Now that the Ryan Reynolds version of Deadpool we know and love is hanging out with Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine, it’s only right that Deadpool 3 pack in as many jokes about X-Men Origins: Wolverine as possible. Again, obviously Wolverine will have no idea what Wade Wilson is talking about, because even if this is the “main” Wolverine, the aspect of his past was erased due to the events of X-Men: Days of Future Past (these timelines are so confusing). Moviegoers in the know, on the other hand, will get a kick out of the numerous jabs at Jackman’s first solo Wolverine outing.
Wolverine In His Classic Yellow Costume
The X-Men film series launched came out as a time when superhero movies were more of a novelty, and as such Hollywood wasn’t as willing to embrace certain staples of superhero comics. In the X-Men’s case, rather than don colorful costumes in their battles against adversaries like Magneto and William Stryker, they instead outfitted with black leather numbers. Once the film series entered its “First Class” era, the mutant heroes started wearing costumes more reminiscent of what they wore on the printed page, but in Wolverine’s case, we never saw him in action in anything resembling his classic yellow costume from the comics.
The closest we came was in a deleted scene from 2013’s The Wolverine, in which Rina Fukushima’s Yukio gave Logan a case containing the yellow suit after the main story concluded. Unfortunately, that suit never resurfaced, but Deadpool 3 can finally deliver a a faithfully costumed Wolverine. Honestly, it doesn’t even need to be the exact suit design from The Wolverine, just so long as Hugh Jackman is wearing something closely modeled off of his character’s traditional comics duds.
Meta Humor About Hugh Jackman
I’ve been talking a lot about Wolverine here, but I’d be remiss if I also didn’t point out that Ryan Reynolds’ Wade Wilson is a big fan of Hugh Jackman the actor. The Merc with the Mouth went so far as to take a magazine cutout of Jackman’s face on his own face in the first Deadpool movie (as seen above), and there’s even a fun nod to Jackman having played Jean Valjean in 2012’s Les Misérables by Julian Dennison’s Russell Collins being designated Prisoner 24601 on a blueprint in Deadpool 2, the same number Valjean had. You think that Wade won’t go full blast with the Jackman references once he and Wolverine cross paths? Don’t count on it.
Remember when Wade called the Josh Brolin-portrayed Cable Thanos in Deadpool 2? Envision a lot more of that with Hugh Jackman, though not to the degree that Deadpool 3 primarily serves as a Jackman joke fest. A balance needs to be reached, though I will be quite disappointed in Deadpool if he doesn’t at least make fun of Jackman’s work on The Greatest Showman and Real Steel, the latter of which was helmed by none other than Deadpool 3 helmer Shawn Levy, who also worked with Ryan Reynolds on Free Guy and The Adam Project.
Include The Previously-Revealed Road Trip Premise
Back in January 2021, Ryan Reynolds revealed that before Disney bought Fox, Deadpool 3 was going to be a “Rashamon style” road trip between Deadpool and Wolverine, no joke. Again, this was at a time when there didn’t appear to be any hope of seeing Hugh Jackman play Wolverine again, so Reynolds probably felt there wasn’t any harm in revealing this premise. Now things have changed, and I’m hoping that this means we can still see Deadpool and Wolverine go on that road trip.
Granted, at the time Ryan Reynolds shared that information, Bob’s Burgers duo Wendy Molyneux and Lizzie Molyneux-Logelin were working on the Deadpool 3 script, but now Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, the duo who wrote the first two Deadpool movies, are handling writing duties. It’s unclear if any of the story that Reese, Wernick and Reynolds hashed out pre-Disney/Fox merger will be used, nor is it clear if the current writers will use any of the story crafted by Molyneux and Molyneux-Logelin. My point is that I’ll understand if Deadpool 3 can’t be entirely a road trip movie, but I would settle for a sequence with these two traveling across the good ol’ USA for some reason tied to the larger narrative, with Deadpool annoying Wolverine so much that the latter is having difficulty not trying to slice the former’s head off to shut him up.
Deadpool 3 arrives in theaters on September 6, 2024, and we’ll pass along any concrete details about how Wolverine fits into the picture once they trickle in. Until then, stream the released Deadpool movies and early all of the MCU’s offerings with your Disney+ subscription.
