Wolverine’s Iconic Brown-And-Tan Costume Was Wildly Expensive To Make For Deadpool 3

Deadpool & Wolverine was a treasure trove of Marvel Easter eggs that were rapid-fired at the screen – but did you know one of those Easter eggs cost the film $100,000? That’s right: a new Interview about Deadpool 3’s production reveals that the tan-and-brown suit that Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine wore onscreen for all of a few seconds actually cost $100K to make! Marvel fans have been waiting to see that costume on Jackman since he first started playing Wolverine in X-Men (2000), so we get the desire to deliver, but even the most hardcore fan would probably question the cost/benefit ratio of that decision…

“There was a whole bunch of [Wolverine variants]. One of the storyboard artists, he was a huge comic book fan and he gave us a list of 10 of them… There were so many,” Deadpool & Wolverine editor Dean Zimmerman told Comic Book Movie. “That brown and tan [suit], we spent about $100,000 building that. They’re expensive… We had to get a little economical with what we could come up with and do… They were all thought out, but they were also done with a budget in mind and also time – once we resumed shooting, our deadline on this movie was so tight.” 

Where to Spot Deadpool & Wolverine’s $100K Costume

Early on in the film, Wade Wilson/Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) goes on a search across the Marvel Multiverse for the Wolverine variant that can help him save the Fox-Marvel movie reality of Earth-10005 from being pruned by the Time Variance Authority. The versions of Wolverine that Deadpool visits made for a hilarious montage of Marvel Comics Easter egg references, with one special stunt casting cameo (Henry Cavill’s as Wolverine).

One moment that Marvel fans got a kick out of was the Easter egg ode to Wolverine’s first comic book appearance battling the Hulk, in a three-part story arc that unfolded in The Incredible Hulk #180-182 (1974). As crazy as it may seem now, Wolverine was introduced into the Marvel Universe as a Canadian anti-hero deployed by the government to neutralize the Hulk, who was tracking one of his most fearsome foes, Wendingo, through the Canadian wilderness. Wolverine ambushed Hulk and Wendigo in the woods but was unable to take down Hulk. And was ultimately recalled by the government.

Deadpool & Wolverine mixes that original Wolverine debut moment with Todd Macfarlane’s iconic cover art for The Incredible Hulk #340 (1988), which depicted Wolverine (in the brown-and-tan suit) popping his Adamantium claw, with Hulk (in his gray, “Joe Fixit” form) reflected in them. Obviously, Deadpool & Wolverine is combining these iconic moments from the Wolverine/Hulk rivalry; that makes it even more wild that the team spent $100K to make the brown-and-tan suit happen since they could’ve used a variation on the same classic yellow-and-blue suit Jackman ended up wearing for most of the film, and it would’ve been a spot-on Easter egg nod to Wolverine’s first appearance.

Reynolds, Jackman, and director Shawn Levy went the extra length just give fans something special. It’s now an infamous Marvel movie anecdote that Jackman came so close to getting a brown-and-tan suit at the end of James Mangold’s The Wolverine (2013. When a deleted scene of the brown-and-tan suit (in a suitcase) leaked, it re-ignited the desire to see a comic-accurate Wolverine onscreen – a desire fans have had to wait another whole decade to see onscreen. Deadpool & Wolverine paid the cost to deliver that – and a whole lot of other iconic Wolverine looks – in one big barrage.

Since Deadpool & Wolverine earned $1.33 billion at the box office, it seems that the investment paid off. The films is now streaming on digital platforms.