Deadpool 3 Star Clears Up Wolverine Timeline Mystery
Hugh Jackman and Ryan Reynolds took to Twitter to answer questions raised by the addition of Wolverine to the cast of Deadpool 3. Well, sort of answer questions.
When a video from Ryan Reynolds announced that Hugh Jackman would be reprising his role as Wolverine for Deadpool 3, we all had the same thought: “Again? Isn’t that played out by now?” Okay, some of us had that thought. Others wondered what this meant for Logan, the movie that not only ended with Wolverine’s death but also was declared by Jackman to be the last time he’d don the Canucklehead’s mutton chops.
To help clarify matters, Jackman and Ryan Reynolds appeared in a follow-up video posted to social media. It went exactly how you would expect it to go. “A quick explainer,” Reynolds’s header reads, promising to address issues of the timeline, Logan canon, the MCU and, “whether we can do this all day or not.” The video finds the two actors sitting on the couch, with Reynolds acknowledging that the announcement raised a lot of questions.
The two begin by earnestly answering those questions, first by addressing the issue of Wolverine’s death at the end of Logan. “Logan takes place in 2029, a totally separate thing,” Reynolds points out. “Logan died in Logan, not touching that.” But when the subject turns to Deadpool 3, the conversation becomes… well, Deadpool-y. “What happens in our movie is…” Reynolds begins, just as the Wham song “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” blasts onto the soundtrack, covering the actors’ words as they pantomime an epic battle. Alfred Hitchcock, eat your heart out.
Snark aside, the gag actually signals Deadpool’s willingness to play inside the MCU. The video ends with Reynolds and Jackman saying, “Thank you, Kevin Feige! Love you, Kevin Feige,” hinting that it was the MCU boss who prevented them from sharing plot details. With that joke, the duo joins a long line of actors who tease about Feige’s vigilance against spoilers. MCU actors such as Anthony Mackie, Mark Ruffalo, and Benedict Cumberbatch regularly dodge reporters’ questions by claiming that their boss/baseball cap aficionado is watching.
More importantly, the video doubles down on Jackman’s involvement in the movie, suggesting that it’s more than a winking cameo, a la the X-Men’s appearances in Deadpool 2. As our own Gavin Jasper points out, the two Weapon X alumni have a long history of tangling in the comic books, making for an interesting big-screen adaptation. Moreover, it suggests some multiverse shenanigans to bring the Merc With a Mouth from the Fox Universe into the MCU. Which seems unnecessary, given that Deadpool is the one character who could just show up in the Avengers Compound with no further explanation.
However Deadpool makes his MCU debut, it probably will play out a lot like the explanation video and the announcement that preceded it: lots of references and self-aware humor, combined with an epic battle undercut by a pop-culture joke. Whether or not Deadpool will interact with mutants already present in the universe, such as Ms. Marvel or Namor, or if Jackman’s Wolverine was the clawed guy in a barfight teased in She-Hulk: Attorney at Law episode two, still remains unclear.
Deadpool 3 knows that it’s a movie coming to theaters on September 6, 2024.
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Joe George’s writing has appeared at Slate, Polygon, Tor.com, and elsewhere!