Ryan Reynolds “Couldn’t Be More Excited” for Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine in Deadpool 3

Ryan Reynolds couldn’t be more “X-cited” for Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine return in Marvel Studios’ Deadpool 3. Last week, Reynolds announced the Logan star was coming out of X-Men retirement with a video posted to social media, revealing a release date of September 6th, 2024. “Hey, Hugh. You wanna play Wolverine one more time?” Reynolds asked in the viral video that’s since racked up nearly 40 million views. “Yeah. Sure, Ryan,” answered Jackman, who retired the character in 2017 after playing the metal-clawed mutant across nine X-Men movies since 2000.

“I couldn’t be more excited,” Reynolds said in an interview for Forbes. “I mean, especially to do it this way. Ultimately, I get to work with some of my closest friends in the world and that doesn’t happen every day working in this business.”

Reynolds, who starred opposite Jackman in 2009’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine, reunites with his Free Guy and The Adam Project director Shawn Levy in the threequel produced by Kevin Feige’s Marvel Studios.

“I’m thrilled and I’ve been sitting on those couple of teasers for a few weeks now,” Reynolds said of the Wolverine reveal video and a subsequent explainer with Jackman addressing how Wolverine is alive. “It’s one of those moments where you’re hitting send or a tweet or a post — your hand is shaking when you’re messing with the zeitgeist in a way like that.”

Collaborating with Jackman and Levy on Deadpool 3 has been “amazing,” added Reynolds. “I feel the same way that the fans do, though. I feel as excited that this character is coming back for another ride, particularly in this context. I think it’s something that people have wanted for a long time, to get this pairing up on the big screen, and that’s what we aim to do.”

Though Reynolds appeared as a member of Team X in Origins — the wise-cracking Wade Wilson had his mouth sewn shut, becoming the mutant-killer Weapon XI — he wouldn’t play a more comic-accurate version of the character until 2016’s Deadpool and 2018’s Deadpool 2.

Earlier this year, Reynolds revealed that — before Disney’s 2019 acquisition of Deadpool studio Fox — Deadpool 3 was conceived as a Rashomon-style road trip buddy comedy with Wade and Logan. It’s unclear whether that’s still the plan with Feige producing for Disney’s Marvel Studios. 

“Wouldn’t we just watch them drive across America? Wouldn’t we just watch them walk through a mall?” Deadpool creator Rob Liefeld told ComicBook’s Phase Zero podcast about a Deadpool-Wolverine road trip. “They both have a healing factor. I can see a healing factor one-off. I can see a healing factor one-off where the two of them decapitate one another and regrow limbs. Or at the very least, Wolverine slices generous pieces of Deadpool off.”

Of Reynolds’ censored video with Jackman, Liefeld added, “You saw what they did when they re-enacted the katanas. They’re giving us the memes. I was thinking, ‘How many times did they rehearse that? Did they get that in one take? Two takes?’”

Marvel’s Deadpool 3 is slated to open in theaters on September 6th, 2024.