After seemingly retiring from playing the role of Logan for good, Hugh Jackman has since signed on to return to the character for the upcoming sequel Deadpool 3. The news followed years of Ryan Reynolds teasing how much he wanted Jackman to co-star with him in a Deadpool sequel, at one point detailing his plans to do a road trip film featuring the two characters. So, on the surface, it would seem that Reynolds must have somehow finally convinced Jackman to return as Logan in the new movie.
However, despite Reynolds' longstanding desire to team up Logan and Deadpool, it was actually Jackman who started the recent chain of events that led to his casting. In a new interview with Collider, Reynolds refuses to take all of the credit for orchestrating Wolverine's return. From the interview, he explains that it was actually Jackman who had reached out to him to inquire about the possibility. Reynolds isn't divulging what exactly Jackman said, but notes that the actor made it very clear he wants to bring back Wolverine, perhaps missing the character after his apparent demise in Logan.
"I don't believe that I'm responsible for Hugh coming back. I always wanted Hugh to come back. My first meeting with Kevin Feige when Disney bought Fox years ago, maybe three years ago, or three and a half, four years ago, I'm not sure, was about doing a movie with the two of us, a Deadpool Wolverine movie. And that was not possible at the time. And then Hugh just happened to call at that perfect moment and express that he'd be interested in coming back and doing this one more time. And the contents of that conversation, I'll let Hugh, because I know it's only inevitable that you and Hugh are going to speak at some point soon, I'm sure. I'll let Hugh answer that on his own. But he expressed interest in coming back, and then it was my job to take that to Kevin Feige one more time and sell it."
Ryan Reynolds Waded Through Lots of Red Tape to Bring Back Logan
As Reynolds went on to further explain, he knew that it wouldn't be a problem getting Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige to get on board with this idea. However, he still notes that it wasn't a cakewalk in making this really happen, given how the rights to the X-Men characters are tangled up between Fox and Marvel. Ultimately, everything was sorted out in the way that it needed to be to make this partnership finally happen, and it seems that Reynolds is more stoked than ever for this project to start filming.
"It's not like adding Hugh Jackman to a movie like this is a hard sell. It's an immediate and emphatic, unqualified yes. It's a lot of moving parts and Fox and X-Men and all that kind of stuff that Marvel needs to sort through. A lot of red tape in order to make that happen. And they did it. And I'm really grateful that they did it, because for me, working with Hugh is a dream come true. But working with Logan and having Logan and Wade together in a movie is beyond any dream I would ever be audacious enough to have. So I'm really, really super f***ing excited to do this film."
Deadpool 3 is scheduled to be released in movie theaters on Nov. 8, 2024.