Deadpool & Wolverine, like all Deadpool movies before it, is full of jokes at the expense of just about everything and everybody. Deadpool pokes fun at his old masters at Fox, his new masters at Disney, and whatever else comes along. But if any joke broke the fourth wall a little too hard, it may have been a crack about Hugh Jackman’s real-life divorce.
In September 2023 it was revealed that Hugh Jackman and Deborra-Lee Furness would be divorcing after nearly three decades of marriage. Considering that Jackman and Furness’ marriage was seen as especially stable previously, it was headline news. But it’s not something either party has spoken much about. However, speaking to Wicked director Jon M. Chu for Variety, Deadpool & Wolverine director Shawn Levy assures us that Jackman was ok with a joke about getting divorced in the film. Levy said…
The first day Hugh shot, he spoke to the camera. Ryan was like, ‘Oh, no, buddy. Only Deadpool breaks the fourth wall.’ The rule tends to be if Deadpool is addressing the camera, the other characters don’t notice. There’s a joke where we go, this is Logan. He’s normally shirtless, but he let himself go after the divorce. Deadpool is an equal-opportunity offender, but we cleared that with Hugh before we laid it out in front of the crew and the world.
The crack about Jackman’s divorce isn’t the only joke at the expense of the man rather than his character. Still, it is certainly the most personal, and considering how close Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman are, it certainly would have only taken a word from Hugh to kill the joke if he wasn’t comfortable with it.
Of course, the joke actually now has taken on a great deal more weight than it had when it was first uttered. Since the release of Deadpool & Wolverine (which is streaming now with a Disney+ subscription), it’s come out that Hugh Jackman is now in a relationship with Sutton Foster, his co-star fromThe Music Man on Broadway. The relationship reportedly started while the show was happening and both stars were still married. Deadpool & Wolverine also includes a joke about Logan performing The Music Man.
Chu noted that the way the joke is shot, we don’t see Hugh Jackman’s face, so we don’t see how or if Logan reacts at all to the divorce joke. This, as Levy points out, is largely by design as the idea is that when Deadpool breaks the fourth wall, the audience hears him, but nobody else does.
Jackman was ok with jokes about his divorce, and it sounds like everybody else was ok with nearly everything that was said. We've only heard about one joke in Deadpool & Wolverine that was asked to be cut by Disney.
It’s interesting to see that Hugh Jackman tried to have Wolverine talk to the camera as well. That certainly would have made for an interesting movie, and likely more than a few cracks about Ryan Reynolds to balance the score.
