LOS ANGELES - Hugh Jackman has promised fans he’ll return as Wolverine - but not in a crossover movie.
The 50-year-old actor played the iconic comic book character for 17 years, with his first outing in 2000, but his mutant alter-ego met his demise in 2017’s ‘Logan’.
‘Deadpool’ star Ryan Reynolds has been constantly pestering Jackman to do a crossover movie, but ‘The Greatest Showman’ star isn’t budging.
In a forthcoming interview with People’s ‘Sunday Today’, Jackman said: ‘’Oh, Wolverine will be back.
‘’Someone’s going to buy him, I don’t know.’’
When interviewer Willie Geist said: ‘’Not you though.’’ He replied: ‘’No, but Ryan is relentless.
‘’He keeps coming back to me in all these ways, shapes and forms. ‘’I just said, ‘You know, I just don’t think the world really wants to see Deadpool with Wolverine.’ ‘’ ‘’Maybe a cameo from Deadpool? I just think it runs over it for Deadpool.’’
When the host joked that Reynolds thinks it will be a good way to boost his career, Jackman quipped: ‘’Oh, really? That’s nice of him. He’s throwing me a bone?’’ He continued: ‘’You know that term, dag, I mentioned? A dag is a goofball in American. It’s a goof. You’re such a dag, Ryan!’’
Reynolds, 42, stars as the red and black lycra-clad anti hero and his alter ego Wade Wilson in 2016’s ‘Deadpool’ and the sequel, and still believes a collaboration between the two superheroes is possible.
‘Logan’ is set years in the future from the point where ‘Deadpool 2’ takes place, and so he argued that Wolverine is still ‘’alive and well’’ during the time of the ‘Deadpool’ series.
He said: ‘’He’s alive and well in my timeline. There is a Logan running around out there with a little bushy chest and his little sharpy, sharpy claws, and he is alive and well and ready to go. I would love that.’’
But he admits the problem doesn’t lie in Wolverine’s health, but in Jackman’s willingness to don the claws for a ninth time.
He added: ‘’I think convincing Hugh of that would be a near-impossible feat, but there’s no human being I love more than Hugh Jackman in that universe, and equally so as a friend. He’s just the best. I already miss him as Logan, so I’m one of those guys that whenever I see him, I’m like, ‘Come on, man. Just one more. Come on. We’ll do it together. It’ll be fun. Come on! On three. Here we go, together. One, two, three, together,’ and it’s always just me saying it.’’
Jackman previously insisted he would not be returning as the ‘X-Men’ mutant, but supported the idea of someone else starring in the role alongside Reynolds.
He said: ‘’It’s sort of out of my hands because I’m an actor who’s played Wolverine. I’m out. But if I was running the studio and someone else was playing Wolverine.’’