Hugh Jackman's Wolverine in Deadpool 3, what it means for the future of Marvel

“His first appearance in the MCU obviously needs to be special.” says Ryan Reynolds in his latest Twitter video, offering updates on the highly-anticipated Deadpool 3. It seems like the character’s debut in the Marvel Cinematic Universe will be a little too special given how Hugh Jackman’s iconic character Wolverine returns to the big screen. 

What the clip tells us about Deadpool 3: In the video, Reynolds delivers his trademark straight-face sarcasm explaining how he and the creative team for Deadpool 3 are working hard to come up with new ideas but his head is blank. Suddenly, his real-life “frenemy”Hugh Jackman appears, climbing a staircase behind him. 

When Reynolds asks Jackman if he would be interested in playing Wolverine one more time, the Wolverine actor casually responds, “Yeah, sure Ryan.”

And that wasn’t all. The clip ends with a cover of Whitney Houston’s I Will Always Love You (the “You” being replaced by “Hugh”). The Deadpool logo is sliced by Wolverine’s claws following which we also get the release date: September 6, 2024. 

Why it took so long for Wolverine to join the MCU: The last we saw of Jackman was in 2017 when the Australian actor confirmed that he would finally take his adamantium claws off playing the mutant superhero one last time in Logan. The film was a critical hit and an audience favourite, ending his run. 

Since Jackman's exit, a lot has changed. The biggest change, of course, is the Marvel Cinematic Universe expanding more and more with every passing year. Even though Wolverine and his superhero team X-Men are properties of Marvel Comics, their cinematic rights were with 21st Century Fox. But alas, no one can escape the capitalistic giant that is the Walt Disney Company that had already acquired Marvel Studios (the entertainment division of Marvel) and went on to even buy Fox in 2019. 

Since then, there has been much speculation on how the X-Men will be incorporated in the elaborate Marvel Cinematic Universe.

-Would the MCU bring aboard Hugh Jackman and other previous cast members as a collective from an alternate dimension?

-Or would Marvel like to start afresh with an all new cast for X-Men? These were the main questions being raised by fans.

This year, a cameo by Patrick Stewart as Professor X in the latest Doctor Strange film and the mention of mutants in Ms Marvel’s debut season finale proved to be essential in Marvel confirming that it has plans to cram in X-Men in their billion-dollar empire in some way or the other. 

Even though the first two Deadpool films were produced and distributed by Fox, the third one is set to be an MCU property. And with Reynolds hinting an unexpected Wolverine role, the hype for Deadpool 3 is bound to increase. 

But will this be the Wolverine from the Fox movies? It is worth wondering if Jackman will play an all-new version of Wolverine this time as the only other version that he played from the Fox movies died in the end of Logan. Still, with Deadpool’s over-the-top humor and non-linear concepts, it is possible that he meets this Wolverine sometime before the events of Logan. Deadpool 2 and various other Marvel movies have anyway played around with time travel to make plot points more convenient. 

It would be quite anticlimatic though if Wolverine just appears as a brief cameo character. But given that the film’s logo also showcased Wolverine’s claw marks, it is expected that Jackman’s character might have a larger role. 

The last time Jackman and Reynolds collaborated in a film was when their characters fought each other in X-Men: Origins Wolverine. A cult favourite for some, the 2009 film is otherwise an infamous entry in the Fox X-Men universe in which Reynolds’s take on Deadpool was critically panned. However, it was this criticism that eventually gave way to the Deadpool movies, propelling Reynolds’s stardom to new heights. 

Even in real life, the two actors have often pulled each other’s leg and have a friendly enmity that seems tailormade for the tabloids. So, needless to say, it will be interesting to see how their off-screen chemistry comes out in Deadpool 3. With Deadpool’s foul-mouthed humour and Wolverine’s gritty cynicism, the duo might just end up being MCU’s best power couple!