Don't know your Weapon X from your X-Men?
No idea what a "snikt" is?
Fear not — here's everything you need to know about Hugh Jackman's Wolverine.
While X-Men might have been a popular franchise for Marvel Comics at the tail end of the 1990s,
comic book movies weren't exactly in vogue.
After the disastrous response to 1997's Batman & Robin shook Hollywood to its core, the superhero
genre became Kryptonite for Hollywood actors.
Despite this sense of foreboding, many stars were linked to the part of Wolverine at this
time, with some openly throwing their hat into the X-Men casting ring.
Before Hugh Jackman grew out his mutton chops and learned to say "bub," Scottish actor Dougray
Scott was cast as Wolverine in Bryan Singer's first X-movie.
Unfortunately, his work on Mission: Impossible II ran into overtime, and he was forced to
drop out of X-Men by, of all people, Tom Cruise.
Scott told The Telegraph in 2020:
Instead, Hugh Jackman found his way into the movie — and the hearts of millions.
The casting of Hugh Jackman as Wolverine caught many people in the movie industry off-guard
— including the actor himself.
In a later interview with Jimmy Fallon, Jackman revealed that his Wolverine audition was only
20 seconds long.
At the time, he saw it as nothing more than a box-ticking exercise on the studio's part,
since Dougray Scott had already been cast in the role.
"When I walked into that room, I was pretty sure that I wasn't playing the role."
But it seemed that 20th Century Fox wanted to hedge their bets.
"Dougray Scott had the role, and then he got caught up on Mission: Impossible II, but everyone
thought that would get sorted.
But the studio said, 'Look, we need a backup plan just in case.'"
Jackman explained that this took the pressure off him during his audition, since he didn't
believe there was any chance he'd get the part.
He just went with the flow.
Kevin Feige, who was an associate producer on the first "X-Men" film, even offered to
drive him to the airport and get a bite to eat.
The actor told him that he didn't have to go out of his way to be nice, however, as
he knew the chances of him getting the part were extremely slim.
And we all know what happened next.
Hugh Jackman has always worn his heart on his sleeve when it comes to his wife, Deborra -Lee Furness.
In an Instagram post celebrating their 25th anniversary, Jackman wrote:
But Jackman and Furness aren't always in perfect agreement.
In fact, if it was up to his wife, Jackman would have passed on the role of Wolverine
in X-Men.
The actor later told Vulture:
Jackman explained that they were both confused by some of the comic book terminology used,
such as the "snikt!"
sound that Wolverine's claws make when they pop out of his knuckles.
But Jackman took the leap, regardless of his wife's apprehension.
In an interview with Female Magazine, Hugh Jackman admitted he knew nothing about the
X-Men comic book series before he received the movie's script.
However, he liked what he read on the page, and could easily tell Logan was a resonant
character with enormous potential.
But even though Jackman was excited about the gig, the people around him tried to temper
his expectations.
He explained:
Though this advice might sound strange today, these were the days before the superhero boom
changed cinema as we know it.
Back then, making a comic book movie was basically a coin flip.
Maybe the people adapting the comics in question had vision, passion for the source material,
and the talent to pull it off — or maybe they were simply trying to cash in on a recognizable brand.
Fortunately, the word on the street was completely off the mark in this instance.
In fact, there's an argument to be made that the box office success of X-Men is what led
to Hollywood's renewed interest in superhero movies.
"You don't have to do this.
All right, maybe you do."
Out of the three Wolverine films, the one that gets the worst rap is X-Men Origins: Wolverine.
Directed by Gavin Hood, Origins earnestly attempts to bring Wolverine's complex beginnings
to the screen.
But many of its artistic choices, such as the treatment of Deadpool and Gambit's tragic
lack of screen time, left fans and critics disappointed.
The movie might have been doomed from the start, however, no matter what creative decisions
it made, as an unfinished copy was leaked onto the internet more than a month before
it was released in U.S. theaters.
Speaking to the media at the time, Jackman remarked:
The actor added that pirates who downloaded the movie were watching an incomplete creation,
which simply couldn't be judged according to typical metrics.
Though this rough version had already been watched by a vast number of people before
the film arrived in cinemas, X-Men Origins: Wolverine still managed to make a decent $373
million off a $150 million budget.
In 2011, the mystery of who leaked the movie was solved when a New Yorker named Gilberto
Sanchez pleaded guilty to uploading the unfinished film onto the internet.
There are no sacred cows in Deadpool.
The first film in the series takes shots at pretty much anything it can, from its own
lack of budget to Wolverine and even Hugh Jackman himself.
"Ha!
Fake laugh, hiding real pain."
The franchise doesn't stop there, either — if anything, Deadpool 2 amps up the insults.
While it appears to be all in good fun, some people might not take too kindly to being
the butt of an oft-repeated joke.
But Hugh Jackman actually loved these quips, as Deadpool co-writer Rhett Reese told Yahoo!,
Reese added that they brought a number of questions to the actor directly, especially
when it came to jokes that used his likeness.
Fortunately, Jackman found everything they suggested hilarious, and encouraged them to
have some fun at his expense.
Every studio would love to sign an actor up to play a superhero forever, especially if
the money is rolling in.
The truth is, though, actors usually want to portray a wide variety of different characters
over the course of their careers.
Committing to a singular role for a long stretch of time is a very rare occurrence.
Normally, a contract may be for a few years, or a couple of movies, but even then, stars
seem to count down the days before they can hang up their spandex.
Hugh Jackman is a notable exception to this rule.
In his first stint, he played Wolverine for nearly 17 years, eventually going out on his
own terms in Logan.
No one could fault him for that, after almost two decades at the wheel.
It's a remarkable achievement, and a record-breaking one at that.
In 2019, both Jackman and Patrick Stewart received Guinness World Records certificates
for having the longest careers as live-action Marvel superheroes.
And that was before both Stewart and Jackman returned to their respective roles.
When Hugh Jackman retired as Wolverine for the first time, he did so on a high.
Logan is not only one of the best X-Men films, but arguably one of the best superhero movies
of all time.
It's not surprising, then, that nobody was really clamoring for Jackman to go.
Even before Logan blew fans and critics away, Jackman's Wolverine was the most consistently
high-quality aspect of a franchise that fluctuated wildly between brilliance and trash.
But Jackman wanted to go out on top, rather than limp to the finish line.
In an interview with Jimmy Fallon, Jackman explained that he once met Jerry Seinfeld
and asked the comedian how he knew when it was time to pull the plug on his long-running
show, Seinfeld.
"When you're creating something it's very important not to run yourself dry.
It's not about finishing on top, necessarily, but making sure that you're, creatively, still
got something left."
The actor added that he immediately went home and told his wife that he was hanging up the
claws for good.
In the world of comic book movies, there's just one certainty: It's only over if the
money says it is.
Yet James Mangold's Logan positions itself as the final chapter in a legacy, one from
which there is no going back.
And once the movie was released, it was made abundantly clear that this version of Logan
was no more.
At a special screening of Logan Noir, Mangold and Hugh Jackman revealed more about how they
approached the film.
For one thing, their initial discussions didn't actually cover whether Logan would survive
or not — but they felt they needed something definitive to mark the end of the franchise
and the character's story.
Mangold said:
When fans learned that the X-Men would be joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the
rumor mill went into overdrive regarding who would succeed Hugh Jackman as Wolverine.
Some fans thought Daniel Radcliffe would be a good pick, while others swore only Tom Hardy
should be in consideration for the role.
There was even a passionate petition for Danny DeVito to play the hero.
"Oh, you unzipped me!
It's all coming back!
It's all coming back, I hate you!"
Everyone has their favorites and is eager to make their case — even Jackman himself.
Before announcing his return for Deadpool 3, Jackman weighed in with his own choice
of actor for the iconic role.
Speaking to film critic Rajeev Masand, Jackman suggested Indian actor Shah Rukh Khan should
be a contender.
Jackman admires the Bollywood performer enormously, and, as it turns out, Khan is a big fan of
both Wolverine and Jackman.
He praised Jackman effusively at an Indian film convention in 2011, and said his fellow
actor had once outright offered him the opportunity to be part of an X-Men film.
James Mangold's Logan serves as the perfect send-off for Hugh Jackman's Wolverine: It's
raw, emotional, and surprisingly beautiful.
Fans flocked to the theater to say their fond farewell to one of the most iconic cinematic
interpretations of a classic superhero, while Jackman himself stated this was the end of
his journey as the Ol' Canucklehead.
So, imagine the surprise of comic book fans everywhere when Ryan Reynolds revealed Jackman
would be returning as Wolverine for Deadpool 3.
Once the celebration and chatter settled, many wondered what Mangold thought of this,
since the director made Logan with every intention of it being the end for Jackman's Wolverine.
They didn't have to wait long to find out: Mangold posted a GIF of Logan's demise on
Twitter without comment, leading the internet to draw its own conclusion.
But he soon posted another Tweet clarifying there were no hard feelings at all — and
that he couldn't wait to see what his friends would get up to in Deadpool 3.