There’s only one upcoming Marvel movie slated on the 2024 release schedule, but it’s a big one. As the title plainly lays out, not only is Deadpool & Wolverine properly teaming Ryan Reynolds’ Wade Wilson and Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine together following their underwhelming pairing in 2009’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine, there are plenty of surprise cameos in store for this MCU entry. However, one character we won’t be seeing is Vinnie Jones’ Juggernaut, because although he was offered the opportunity to cameo, he turned it down for a good reason.
While promoting his new show The Gentlemen, which debuts to Netflix subscribers on Friday, Jones talked about his time on X-Men: The Last Stand playing Juggernaut, which he once described as one of his “most disappointing” roles (and later prompted director Brett Rather to respond). Then during the Yahoo UK interview, he mentioned that he’d been approached for Deadpool 3, saying:
Funny enough, I just got asked to do Deadpool, the new one that’s coming out now, and I spoke to the director, and I just said it's such a drama putting that suit on mentally and physically. I mean, it had its mental toll as well, because you're in it and you can't do anything all day, you can only drink through a straw. So we couldn't strike the deal for Deadpool. Deadpool's my favorite movie of all fucking time, more or less. I really wanted to do it, but they didn't have the budget to put me in the suit.
So this is by no means a matter of Vinnie Jones just not wanting anything to do with Deadpool & Wolverine. Far from it, if the talks had gone to his liking, it sounds like we would be seeing him as a member of the Deadpool 3 cast. However, as he understandably pointed out, portraying his version of Juggernaut requires him to don a physically uncomfortable suit that doesn’t jive well with his mental health either. In the end, a deal that appealed to both parties just couldn’t be worked out, so even though Jones is a big fan of Deadpool, he declined to appear.
Had this cameo moved forward, it would have been the second time a version of Juggernaut appeared in a Deadpool movie, as Deadpool 2 featured a more faithful-looking version of the character that was CGI-created and voiced by a digitally-modulated Ryan Reynolds. Although Vinnie Jones is sitting out Deadpool & Wolverine, the movie won’t be lacking in X-Men: The Last Stand vets. That’s because Aaron Stanford is playing a version of Pyro, as revealed in the first Deadpool & Wolverine trailer.
But these two are just the tip of the special appearances lined up for Deadpool 3, and not all of them are X-Men-related, as Jennifer Garner is reportedly set to reprise Elektra. As far as familiar Deadpool faces go, we’ll reunite with characters like Morena Baccarin’s Vanessa, Leslie Uggams’ Blind Al, Brianna Hildebrand’s Negasonic Teenage Warhead and Karan Soni’s Dopinder, to name just a few. Newcomers Matthew Macfayden and Emma Corrin have also come on board, with the former playing TVA agent Paradox and the latter reportedly playing Cassandra Nova.
Deadpool & Wolverine arrives in theaters on July 26, with Shawn Levy sitting in the director’s chair this time around, and he also wrote the script with Ryan Reynolds, Zeb Wells, Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick. Stream the first two Deadpool movies, as well as X-Men: The Last Stand, with a Disney+ subscription now.
