The third Deadpool film is certain to contain more gnarly fights, highly graphic body-horror, and the facetious wit that has become the hallmark of any Ryan Reynolds film. But the movie will also have an extra special ingredient: it comes with claws.
Reynolds – the star of the franchise which launched in 2016 – took to his socials to announce the return of Australian national treasure, Hugh Jackman, as Wolverine in the new film, set to premiere on September 6, 2024. It will be the first time Jackman has played the role since 2017’s Logan.
In quintessential Reynolds fashion, the 45-year-old revealed the news via a humorous video, replete with self-deprecation and a not-so-subtle advertisement for his Aviation brand of gin.
“Hey Hugh, you want to play Wolverine one more time?” asks Reynolds as Jackman walks through the background of the video, eating an apple. “Yeah, sure Ryan,” Jackman says casually, before Whitney Houston’s I Will Always Love You breaks out, recalling the franchise’s love for power ballads from artists like Celine Dion and Juice Newton.
Director Shawn Levy (The Adam Project) also took to Twitter, suggesting the reveal was a relatively long time coming. “I want to take a minute to thank #StrangerThings for training me to keep my big mouth shut. This news has been burning a hole in my lips for weeks now.”
How Wolverine, who debuted in 2000’s X-Men, will feature is yet to be determined. But theories have already taken off, with Marvel fans wondering if it will be a short but sweet cameo, if Wolverine will be killed off (again), and even if Deadpool will kidnap the mutant.
The last time Jackman’s claws were out was in Logan, the epilogue to the X-Men franchise directed by James Mangold in 2017. The film famously concluded with Wolverine’s death, marking what many assumed to be the character’s final moments on screen. The self-aware and ironic narration permeating the Deadpool films is sure to reference this “minor” narrative hiccup.
Alongside Jackman’s highly anticipated return, the film’s third rendition enters into the complicated, multidimensional Marvel Cinematic Universe, connecting the likes of Wade Wilson (aka Deadpool) and Firefist (Julian Dennison) to other comic book curiosities, although the exact nature of its connection has so far been kept tightly under wraps.
It won’t be the first time Reynolds and Jackman collaborate on-screen, having co-starred in X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009). The fourth instalment of the X-Men series, it introduced Deadpool for the first time as the “Merc with no mouth” and no red and black costume. The film was widely regarded as a cinematic flop, earning only a 38 per cent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but hopes are high that the duo’s return in 2024 will breathe new life into the characters’ positioning in the MCU.
Ryan Reynolds in a scene from Deadpool 2.Credit:Twentieth Century Fox via AP
Reynolds and Jackman have an off-screen friendship too, with the pair known to the world as “frenemies” thanks to their comedic online feuds since 2009. They have made ads for each other’s companies (Jackman’s Laughing Man Coffee and Reynolds’ gin), posted tongue-in-cheek birthday messages, and even made a video together for the All In Challenge, which helped provide food for those struggling during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Deadpool has been hugely successful at the box office, with both the first (2016) and second (2018) earning over US$780 million ($1.2 billion) at the box office.
Questions around how Wolverine will claw his way into the Deadpool universe aside, it’s clear that Jackman will always hold a special place in Reynolds’ heart: at the end of the video announcement, the song belts out, “I will always love Hugh”.
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