After years of being away from the silver screen, the cinematic Sabretooth finally returned earlier this year in Deadpool & Wolverine… but maybe not the one you were expecting. Tyler Mane reprised his version of Victor Creed as one of the biggest Deadpool 3 cameos following his turn as the character in the first X-Men movie, but let’s not forget that Liev Schreiber put his own spin on Sabretooth in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. However, Schreiber was perfectly “ok” with not appearing in the 34th of the Marvel movies in order, and I understand where he’s coming from.
Given that it’s been 15 years since X-Men Origins: Wolverine came out, Schreiber pointed out that it would have been a lot harder for him to get into Sabretooth shape for Deadpool & Wolverine, and he wasn’t willing to put in the kind of work in that Hugh Jackman was required to do to reprise Wolverine. As he put it:
To be honest, it's a lot of work getting your body up to that point. I know I watched Hugh [Jackman] get himself ready again, and I thought, 'I'm ok to sit by the sidelines.’
Liev Schreiber briefly addressed about his absence from Deadpool & Wolverine while being interviewed by Collider about his new movie Across the River and Into the Trees. With Liev Schreiber just a month away from turning 57, achieving the right physique would certainly would be a lot harder to do compared to when he was shooting X-Men Origins: Wolverine at the age of 40. Let’s also not forget that Tyler Mane’s Sabretooth was quickly decapitated by Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine in The Void. It’s one thing to intensely exercise for a role when you’re one of the main characters, it’s another to do it when you’ll only be on screen for a few minutes.
While Schreiber had no problem missing out on the Deadpool & Wolverine fun, he has appreciated the numerous calls from fans over the years for him to reprise Sabretooth, including for 2017’s Logan, which he was originally supposed to be in. The Ray Donovan actor expressed his gratitude with these words:
It's amazing. I can't begin to tell you what it feels like when people are thinking about something you did and are so appreciative of it that they want you to do it again.
Although X-Men Origins: Wolverine marked the only time Liev Schreiber played Sabretooth, it’s not the only superhero movie credit to his name, as he also voiced Wilson Fisk, a.k.a. Kingpin, in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Fortunately, Deadpool & Wolverine wasn’t lacking for familiar faces from Marvel movies past beyond Hugh Jackman as Wolverine and Ryan Reynolds of course reprising Wade Wilson. Wesley Snipes’ Blade, Jennifer Garner’s Elektra, Dafne Keen’s Laura Kinney and Chris Evans’ Human Torch all returned, and as a nice bonus, Channing Tatum finally got to play Gambit years after his numerous attempts to get a Gambit movie off the ground were squashed when Disney shelved the project in 2019.
Deadpool & Wolverine is still playing in theaters, but count on it one day being streamable with a Disney+ subscription, which is also what you can use to access X-Men Origins: Wolverine right now. Across the River and Into the Trees has begun its theatrical run, and you can also now see him starring opposite Nicole Kidman in the miniseries The Perfect Couple, which can be streamed with a Netflix subscription.
