At this point, Hugh Jackman has been playing Wolverine for nearly fifteen years. Ever since ‘X-Men’ premiered in 2000, he has donned the adamantium claws in every installment of the franchise and he’ll do so once again in ‘X-Men: Days of Future Past’ in a few weeks. After that, it’s likely that he’ll stick around for ‘X-Men: Apocalypse’ and a sequel to ‘The Wolverine’. But what about beyond that?
Recently, the Australian actor spoke about potentially walking away from his signature character. Previously, the man behind the prominent X-Man spoke about Bryan Singer’s return to the franchise possibly being his last Marvel movie, however, recent developments stemming from the success of his last outing and the great anticipation for his next one may have changed things. Now, in an interview with SFX Magazine, Jackman spoke about the state of Wolverine currently after James Mangold’s 2013 film and his future as Weapon X:
“I don’t know [what’s happening with ‘Wolverine 3’ yet]. We’re talking it through. I still am very ambitious for the character. And tonally I feel like we corrected the ship with the last one. But I feel we can still go further, in a way. If I did another one I’m 99.9% sure it would be the last, so that will inform what it is for me.”
Now that they’ve already taken Logan to Japan (which is arguably one of the character’s most famous adventures) where would they go next? Jackman weighs in on those details and reveals that he hasn’t actually signed on for it yet:
“Well, of course we’re looking at ‘Old Man Logan’, because that may be the only option left at this point! [laughs] We are looking at a lot of different storylines. No one has jumped out. You can tell from my answer that we’re still working it out. I’m working with Jim Mangold, which is exciting. Jim came on board ‘The Wolverine’ after Darren [Aronofsky] left, so he inherited it. And of all the things that Jim can do, one of the great things he does is develop scripts. I’m excited to see what we can come up with, but I haven’t signed on signed on. I’m genuinely at that point where unless it’s better than the last one I’m not going to do it.”
Finally, Jackman was asked if he would still star in the sequel if the next script is only just as good, but not better than ‘The Wolverine’. The actor gives a passionate answer that shows just how much he cares about the character and wants to protect him:
“Hm. I don’t know if that will get me across the line, man. I think it has to be better. I can still see where we can improve on the last one. I love the intimacy of that story, I liked the small stuff, I liked that it was a little unexpected. I don’t want to get into specifics, because it just upsets people, but there are certain parts of that story where I felt we were predictable. And I don’t think you need to do that with Wolverine. What’s exciting is that you can make it a more interior story, and people actually prefer that. And that was good to show and convince everyone – especially everyone who greenlights the movies!”
It’s really great to hear someone value a character this much that they want to protect them. Too bad that Jackman couldn’t protect Wolverine from ‘X-Men Origins: Wolverine’, but I digress. If the actor decides he’s done with the X-Men after the sequel to ‘The Wolverine’, will you miss him? Since the franchise can’t go on without the most popular member of the team, do you have any ideas about who could replace him? Share your thoughts in the comments.
‘ X-Men: Days of Future Past’ hits theaters on May 23, 2014.
