Hugh Jackman Addresses Notorious Wolverine Movie Leak

Hugh Jackman addresses that infamous leak of his first solo Wolverine movie, X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Jackman is joining Ryan Reynolds on the press tour for their new Marvel film Deadpool & Wolverine, which comes with an entire meta subtext about the history of the X-Men movies – including some of the lowest points for the franchise. 

Jackman and Reynolds appeared on the hit show Hot Ones, where host Sean Evans asked about the difference between knowing when leaks for a movie are beneficial, and when they’re bad. For example: the “leak” of test footage director Tim Miller shot for a Deadpool movie is ultimately what got 20th Century Fox to greenlight the project. However, the 2009 leak of the entire X-Men Origins: Wolverine movie onto torrent sites was not so great for Jackman: 

“I can give the example of a bad leak. X-Men Origins: Wolverine…it was leaked maybe a week before we came out, and I think I just remember someone saying and I think it’s up to 10 million people had seen it before it’d come out,” Jackson explained. “That’s a bad leak.”

The leak of X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) was a definite low point for the X-Men franchise – for a lot of reasons. The film was tripped up by the 2007-2008 Writers Strike in Hollywood, resulting in a less-than-stellar storyline for director Gavin Hood to work from. The leak allowed tens of millions of viewers to see a workprint version of X-Men Origins: Wolverine that didn’t even have finished visual effects, causing even more backlash. Before memes were even really a thing, X-Men Origins: Wolverine was a meme representing just how bad a movie can turn out. During the interview, Reynolds joked that the leak of Wolverine got a higher Rotten Tomatoes score than the actual film, perfectly skewering both hard hits the film took.

The silver lining was that the utter crash and burn of X-Men Origins: Wolverine led to the franchise taking a whole new direction with James Mangold’s Wolverine films, The Wolverine and Logan – the latter of which is widely regarded as one of the best comic book movies there is. It’s been a full-turn journey for Jackman – and Deadpool & Wolverine is about to take his legacy to the next level. 

Deadpool & Wolverine is now in theaters.