Avengers: Endgame Director Thinks Marvel Should Take a Break on Wolverine Before Recasting Hugh Jackman

Ever since The Walt Disney Company completed their acquisition of 20th Century Fox, Marvel Studios has been given an almost complete set of toys to play with on the big screen. Though Spider-Man is still firmly at Sony Pictures, Marvel now has the rights back to the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, and every possible hero, villain, and character that came with those franchises. This includes one of the only characters that rivals the likes of Spider-Man in the pages of Marvel Comics, ol’ Snikt-Bub himself, Wolverine. Logan’s time on the big screen has no doubt cemented Hugh Jackman as many movie goers ideal version of the character, so Marvel will have a hard time eventually replacing him, something one of their former directors seems to think they know.

Captain America and Avengers co-director Joe Russo revealed in a new interview that he thinks Marvel Studios should take their time bringing Wolverine to the big screen again, because recasting the character will be something audiences need to sit with. Speaking with ComicBookMovie, Russo said:

“I mean, Wolverine was always one of my favourite characters. Incredible Hulk #181 was one of the first comic books that I remember collecting, which was the first appearance of Wolverine. Hugh Jackman has done an incredible job with that character over the years, and I think they should take a break for a little while before someone else takes a crack at it.”

Russo’s train of thought seems to be exactly what Marvel Studios is planning anyway. Though they gained the rights to the characters back last year, it doesn’t seem like they have any current plans for them through at least the first part of 2022. None of the currently announced movies or shows from the studio will seemingly include X-Men characters or Wolverine (thought we can’t say for certain), and Kevin Feige himself noted it will be some time before they appear in the MCU.

“It’ll be a while,” Feige told io9 about Marvel Studios’ X-Men plans in April 2019, shortly after Disney’s purchase brought the X-Men, Deadpool and Fantastic Four screen rights from Fox back to the House of Ideas. “It’s all just beginning and the five-year plan that we’ve been working on, we were working on before any of that was set. So really it’s much more, for us, less about specifics of when and where [the X-Men will appear] right now and more just the comfort factor and how nice it is that they’re home. That they’re all back. But it will be a very long time.”

Hugh Jackman himself has publicly noted his support for someone else taking on the part, telling The Daily Beast: “Somebody else will pick it up and run with it. It’s too good of a character not to. It’s kind of like, you’re on your way home and your friend rings you and goes, ‘Oh, dude, a new DJ just came on and the music is awesome, are you going to come back?’ And you say, ‘Sounds good but… no.’ They’re fine with someone else.”