We’ve all assumed that when Hugh Jackman was announced for “Deadpool 3,” reprising his Logan/”X-Men” one more time—after avowing for years, he was done with the role previously—that it was all the doing of Ryan Reynolds and the director Shaun Levy. Both had a relationship with Jackman; Levy directed him in “Reel Steel” ages ago, and the two actors obviously have quite the relationship on social media with all the gangs and pranks they play on each other (and, of course, Deadpool/Reynolds and Wolverine/Jackman did already act side by side in “X-Men Origins: Wolverine,” and of course, Reynolds mocked that hard in the meta-end credits of “Deadpool 2”).
In 2021, before a Deadpool/Wolverine movie was even a thing, Reynolds even wrote on Twitter, “Before Disney bought Fox, ‘Deadpool 3’ was gonna be a road trip between Deadpool and Logan. Rashomon style. For real.”
Of course, Reynolds is constantly joking on Twitter, and no one really seemed to know whether he was serious or not. But as both the actors talk to the media more and are inevitably asked about the upcoming “Deadpool 3” (though there is no official title at the moment), it seems more and more likely that Reynolds was being serious.
Either way, in an interview with Collider, Reynolds says he had hoped and dreamed of a Deadpool/Logan crossover ages ago. The actor/producer also suggested it wasn’t he or Levy hounding Jackman that changed his mind, but Jackman himself brought up the idea that he would love one more kick at the can.
“I think you’re giving me too much credit. I don’t believe that I’m responsible for Hugh coming back. I always wanted Hugh to come back,” Reynolds explained.
Reynolds also confirmed that he pitched a Deadpool/Logan movie in his first meeting with Marvel’s Kevin Feige after Disney bought 20th Century Fox in 2019.
“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,” he said.
Levy suggested on social media just as the announcement was made that it was a relatively new development and one they had to sit on before they could formally announce. Reynolds seemed to echo the same sentiment.
“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,” Reynolds continued. “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.”
And sell it he did, suggesting it wasn’t that it didn’t take that much convincing.
“It’s not like adding Hugh Jackman to a movie like this is a hard sell,” he explained “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*cking excited to do this film.”
The Shawn Levy-directed “Deadpool 3” is set to premiere in theaters on November 8, 2024. The big question for fans is: will ‘DP3’ say goodbye to the Fox version of this mutant Marvel world with Colossus and those supporting characters? I.e., will they be in in? And whether the movie uses the multiverse to port over Deadpool into the proper Disney-Marvel cinematic universe continuity. The assumption, frankly, is yes to both, but we’ll see how it all shakes out.