No, Hugh Jackman Will NOT Be Back As Wolverine After Disney/Fox Deal
The recently retired X-Man won't be wooed back for the MCU.
Fandom remains in a frenzy, as reports of Disney being set to purchase the film/TV end of 20th Century Fox have proven accurate. While this mega-deal is still yet to be set in stone, it has comic book movie fans everywhere casting aside any concerns about media monopolies and frothing at the mouth at the prospect of the Disney-owned Marvel Studios finally having the film rights to more or less every Marvel Comics property: most notably, the X-Men.
Unsurprisingly, word of the matter has also reached the ears of key figures associated with the X-Men series - including a certain Hugh Jackman, who recently retired from his signature role as Wolverine.
Jackman has appeared as the clawed Canadian mutant anti-hero in every X-Men movie released to date (bar Deadpool, unless we include the misuse of his People magazine cover), but made it clear from the get-go that this year's Logan - easily his finest performance in the role - would be his swansong.
Even so, given he had intimated in the past that he'd love to see the X-Men join the Marvel Cinematic Universe, fans are naturally wondering whether this merger might be enough to lure him back. But it looks like we shouldn't hold our breath there.
Jackman tells Collider, "It’s interesting because for the whole 17 years I kept thinking that would be so great, like I would love to see, particularly, Iron Man and the Hulk and Wolverine together. And every time I saw an Avengers movie I could just see Wolverine in the middle of all of them like punching them all on the head.
"But it was like, “Oh well, that’s not gonna happen,” and it was interesting just when I first saw that headline [about the Fox/Disney deal] — it was just the possibility of it and who knows what’s gonna happen, obviously — I was like, “Hang on!” But I think, unfortunately, the ship has sailed for me, but for someone else I would like to see Wolverine in there.”
Jackman surely has the right outlook here. Much as it made sense for Andrew Garfield to be replaced by Tom Holland as the MCU's Spider-Man, it seems likely that any new MCU take on the X-Men will necessitate new actors - unless perhaps they work in some sort of alternate universe angle, which admittedly doesn't seem outside the realm of possibility.
Either way, Logan was a pretty definitive final word on the character for Jackman. At 49, he is clearly getting a bit too old for the part - and, as comic fans will be happy to remind us, at 6′ 2″ he was always way too tall for it. The time is right for new blood.
And then, of course, the question becomes - who could possibly take over as the new Wolverine? Now there's a fun one to ponder.