Though initially most comic book fans disliked the idea of a thin, 6’2″ Australian musical actor playing the stocky, 5’3″ foul-mouthed Canadian Wolverine, after playing Wolverine in over a half-dozen movies it’s hard to envision anyone who could wield Logan’s claws as good as Hugh Jackman. But after over a dozen years playing Wolverine, Jackman is now in his mid-forties and unfortunately ages a bit faster than the nearly-indestructible mutant. On top of that, it takes Jackman considerable time to get into his “Wolverine” shape. After all, it seems like it’s written into Jackman’s contract that he has to be shirtless at some point in any movie that he plays Wolverine in.
Wolverine is slated to appear in X-Men: Apocalypse, the sequel to the eagerly anticipated X-Men: Days of Future Past, and also star in one more Wolverine sequel before he is expected to retire from playing the character. Perhaps wisely, Jackman and X-Men producers Lauren Shuler Donner and Hutch Parker said to Collider in an interview promotion Days of Future Past that they’re hoping to shoot Apocalypse back-to-back with Wolverine 3.
I’m going to be bummed whenever Jackman has to stop playing Wolverine (I’m still hoping he’ll play the character many years from now in an adaptation of the Old Man Logan storyline), but if indeed Jackman ends up shooting X-Men: Apocalypse and Wolverine 3 back-to-back I think it’s the best move for everyone. Of course, Jackman has recently been firm about the fact that he won’t do any other films as Wolverine unless he likes the scripts (which many see as his way of saying he thought the first Wolverine solo movie was bad), so the X-Men braintrust has to be sure to jump that hurdle first.
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