RUMOR: Will Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine Be a Big Part of Secret Wars?

Movies

Once the claws come out, it’s hard to put them back in again. When Hugh Jackman’s return as Wolverine in Deadpool 3 was announced, Ryan Reynolds said he’d be coming back to the role “one more time.” But that may not be the case; scooper Daniel Richtman (behind a paywall at Patreon, but ComicBookMovie.com has the skinny) claims that Jackman met with Kevin Feige before the actors’ strike, and the two discussed his future as Wolverine – particularly the possibility of Jackman having a “big role” in Avengers: Secret Wars. Secret Wars is going to be the big finale of the Multiverse Saga, as Phases 4-6 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe have been called, and Marvel hopes to recruit a bunch of actors to reprise their versions of the many Marvel heroes (and villains, presumably) from eras past.

Adding to this is WDW Pro, who claims that Wolverine and Spider-Man will be the central characters – or among them, at least – in Secret Wars and that this will act as a course correction for Marvel as it moves away from what Gary at Nerdrotic termed the” M-She-U.” According to Pro, the film will feature other big heroes making their return, among them Chris Evans as Captain America (which has been rumored before) and Jennifer Garner as Elektra (who will return in Deadpool 3 along with Jackman as Logan). The video is almost eighteen minutes long, but it’s well worth it, and you can watch it below:

Time will tell if this is true –and how much of it, if any – but I can see it happening, or at least Marvel and Disney trying to make it happen. Despite Bob Iger’s undoubtedly feigned sunny outlook, Disney is in a bad way right now; their movies simply aren’t hitting, Disney+ is a punchline, and the parks are seeing attendance drop. And as WDW Pro points out, Marvel was a cash cow for them, a franchise as close to universally loved as things get (except maybe Star Wars, which… well, there that went), and it’s gone down in flames in just a few years. You can’t have an Avengers movie headlined by Shang-Chi, Black Panther’s sister, and Star-Spangled Falcon; nobody cares about them as leads, and as much as Iger wants to keep costs down, you can’t make an Avengers movie on the cheap. Bringing in the big guns is the best option, even if they have to spend more than they’d like. And look at the line-up mentioned so far; it isn’t cosmic heroes, but Wolverine, Spider-Man, Elektra, and Captain America. Those are beloved characters, but they’re earthbound heroes who don’t require as big a special effects budget as some of the more powerful ones. (That being said, there isn’t a doubt in my mind that they’ll be going after Robert Downey Jr.)

If they want this to work, though, they can’t think that Hugh Jackman, Chris Evans, and your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man are a quick fix. Marvel has lost the audience’s trust, and they have to build it back if they want Secret Wars to be the event the previous Avengers films were. There are a few movies in the can already that sound like duds, but everything else they produce has to be good to great. Deadpool 3 is in a good position (aside from that damn She-Hulk writer they had to force in there), but they have to make Fantastic Four work, and they should scrap what they can – namely Thunderbolts and the Wesley Snipes-less PG-13 Blade reboot, not to mention anything they have planned for Disney+ outside of Daredevil (which needs to be revamped so it’s the version of Daredevil people actually like) – and fill those spots with some cool movies that will get people excited. If they serve up nothing but trash and then expect people to be excited to see some familiar faces in Secret Wars, they’re going to be disappointed.

But this is all speculation. Even if they are trying to get Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine and other classic versions of the characters back, do Disney and Marvel have the will and the common sense to have them star in good movies? Are they going to jettison the identity politics, bad storytelling, and non-stop cringey jokes and make some epic, fun, human, entertaining comic book movies that don’t insult or lecture their audience? It feels like a tall order right now, and Bog Iger has sounded like an ideologue determined to do down with his sinking ship since his return as CEO of Disney. But maybe there’s only so much money one can lose before even the most driven activist succumbs to reality. If superheroes have taught us anything, it’s that there’s always hope.