It’s surely not an understatement to say that character licensing is the bane of most comic book movie fans lives. While the source material provides us with ample examples of brilliant character combinations, their cinematic counterparts are limited in scope by movie studios and the characters they can use.
Deadpool is a prime example of this frustrating situation – being a self-aware character that has appeared in countless other comic book titles, but whose big screen adventures are tied to Twentieth Century Fox, thereby precluding any potential interaction with superheroes and villains outside of the X-Men universe. While promoting Logan, Hugh Jackman has recently addressed this issue in relation to Wolverine.
The actor has appeared on the big screen as Logan/Wolverine nine times in 17 years. From 2000’s X-Men, to 2017’s Logan, he’s become synonymous with the Marvel comics character to the extent that he’s arguably one of the most fan-requested in terms of franchise crossover. In light of Jackman’s statements that Logan will be his last appearance as Wolverine, Screen Rant recently asked him the hypothetical question of whether he would be interested in starring in an Avengers movie, as his clawed character.
“If that was on the table when I made my decision [to leave the character], it certainly would have made me pause. That’s for sure. Because I always love the idea of him within that dynamic, with the Hulk obviously, with Iron Man but there’s a lot of smarter people with MBAs who can’t figure that out [laughter]. You never know.
At the moment, honestly, if I really did have [the other Marvel characters] there, I probably wouldn’t have said this is the last. It just feels like this is the right time [to leave the character].”
In terms of film appearances, Wolverine and the X-Men belong to Twentieth Century Fox, while the Marvel Cinematic Universe (and the Avengers) is held at Disney. Such crossovers are not beyond the realm of possibility – as the current integration of Spider-Man (held by Sony) into the MCU demonstrates – but they’re often prohibitively complex endeavours, and so the idea of Wolverine popping up with Hulk will almost certainly remain a pipe dream.
Logan lands in theatres on March 3rd, 2017.
