Hugh Jackman will again be reprising his iconic role as Wolverine after his supposed send-off film, James Mangold’s 2017 Logan, in the upcoming Deadpool & Wolverine. As expected, this makes a lot of fans excited following his 2017 statement that he would retire from being the adamantium-clawed hero after over two decades. So, though Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige initially advised Jackman not to “come back” as Wolverine, director Shawn Levy recently revealed the Marvel boss’ condition for the actor to return.
While promoting Deadpool & Wolverine in Shanghai, China, with lead stars Jackman and Ryan Reynolds, Levy told the audience that Feige finally agreed to let the Australian actor return as Logan, but on one condition. This time, he had to wear his comic-accurate blue and yellow suit, 24 years after James Marsden joked about Wolverine’s classic costume in Bryan Singer’s 2000 X-Men.
“He said, ‘Yes, but he wears the yellow. Can he finally wear the yellow?’” Levy said via ComicBook. “And we began.”
Reynolds, who also produced and co-wrote the script with Levy and returning Deadpool scriptwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, added that he and Levy were already ready to pull the plug on the threequel after Marvel Studios refused several story pitches, like a Rashomon-style storyline and a road trip movie with Karan Soni’s Dopinder. So, though he found Disney’s acquisition of 20th Century Fox in 2019 as “maybe not the best investment,” it finally allowed his character to make a crossover into the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Sadly, the deal to make Deadpool 3 happened after Jackman retired from his Wolverine role following Logan. This shattered Reynolds’ hope to create a Deadpool-Wolverine movie, which he started realizing in 2016. Add that to Feige telling him to “forget” his plan; the threequel almost didn’t happen.
“I had met Kevin Feige six years ago to discuss this, and the first thing I said to him, ‘I just want to make Wolverine and Deadpool together. I just want these two together on screen,’” he recalled. “At the time, Kevin said, ‘Forget it. It's never going to happen.’”
Fortunately, everything changed when Reynolds received a call from Jackman, telling him he wanted to return and do Deadpool & Wolverine if it weren’t too late. Though they were on their last pitch and about to say to Feige that they would “walk away and come back later” at the time, they told him about Jackman’s phone call instead.
“Shawn and I just pivoted in the middle of our pitch to Kevin and said, ‘Look, this thing just happened. It seems kind of miraculous. Hugh called me, what do you say?’” he continued. “And for some reason, Kevin immediately said yes.”
Hugh Jackman Talks About His Yellow Suit in Deadpool & Wolverine
Jackman has played Wolverine for over two decades, starting in the first live-action X-Men, but this will be the first time he will be seen in the mutant’s yellow suit. So, in a recent interview with Empire, the actor revealed how it felt to wear his character’s comic-accurate costume finally.
“We almost did it in The Wolverine,” he said. “But from the moment I put it on here, I was like, ‘How did we never do this?’ It looked so right; it felt so right. I was like, ‘That’s him.’”
The 55-year-old star added that fans have yet to see the different sides of his character in the movies. So, making his return after seven years, everything was “exciting” for him again.
Deadpool & Wolverine will mark many firsts in the titular characters’ lives. Aside from the first live-action appearance of Wolverine’s yellow suit, it will also see his and Wade Wilson’s first adventure in the MCU. So, with its many surprising cameos, the ending of Fox’s X-Men universe, and more, this film is a must-see.
Deadpool & Wolverine is set to hit the big screen on July 26.
