Marvel boss warned Hugh Jackman not to return as Wolverine in Deadpool 3

Marvel boss Kevin Feige has revealed that he has warned Hugh Jackman not to return as Wolverine for the upcoming Deadpool film, now titled Deadpool and Wolverine.

Jackman had played the X-Men character in nine different films, completing the character’s arc with the acclaimed 2017 film Logan.

However, Jackman will now return as Logan/Wolverine in the third Deadpool film alongside Ryan Reynolds.

“I said, ‘Let me give you some advice, Hugh. “Don’t come back,” Feige said Rich magazine. “[Jackman had the greatest ending in history with Logan. That’s not something we should undo.”

At the end of Logan, which is set in a bleak and dystopian future, Jackman’s character ultimately sacrifices his life for the sake of a young protege.

Jackman also described his response to being offered the role in Deadpool and Wolverine. “I drove for another hour,” he recalled. “Couldn’t stop thinking about it. And I got out of the car, called Ryan [Reynolds]and said, ‘Ryan, if you want me, I’m in.'”

It was also revealed that Feige rejected Reynolds’ original proposal for the film, which would have involved a subjective retelling of the same events multiple times in the style of Akira Kurosawa’s 1950 classic Rashomon.

The actor says he initially envisioned the sequel as “Rashomon Story about Wolverine and Deadpool and something they experienced together, but told from three completely different perspectives. It was a way to make a big film with very little effort.”

Of his decision to turn down the pitch, Feige said: “The truth is, I wasn’t even sure how to integrate Deadpool. I thought a lot about how I could bring mutants and the X-Men into it [the Marvel Cinematic Universe]and I thought it had to be more than just playing the hits. But the truth is, Ryan is an idea machine. He may have shared that with me, but he also expressed 25 other thoughts and ideas.”

After that idea was scrapped, Reynolds “went back to the drawing board” and wrote up to 18 different story ideas for the project.

“Some of them [were] almost like a Sundance film, sub-$10 million budget, using the intellectual property, so to speak [intellectual property] in a way they hadn’t used before,” he said. “And I’ve done bigger films and things in between.”

Deadpool and Wolverine hits theaters on July 26th.