Hugh Jackman is currently busy promoting his latest turn as Wolverine, in the appropriately titled The Wolverine. Amongst the many questions he has faced, he was asked if about the possibility of having his character interact with other superheroes, namely Spider-Man (owned by Sony), and The Avengers (whose rights are owned by Marvel). Wolverine and his fellow X-Men are of course owned by Fox.
“Mate, I ask the same question,” Jackman tells Collider. “I literally asked the same question the other day to Tom from Marvel who works with all the other studios, he works with Sony and Fox, that’s his job to liaise. I said, ‘Man, can this happen?’ and he goes ‘Look, it’s not gonna be easy because you’re working with different studios and they’re their properties.’ But I believe—maybe I’m optimistic, I understand at Marvel they’ve got The Avengers, they’ve got a lot of big things going on, but at some point I just find it almost impossible that there’s not a way to bring Iron Man, all the Avengers characters, Wolverine, the X-Men characters, Spider-Man, and somehow get them in together.”
Though superhero films are all the rage, and breaking box office records left and right, getting the studios to come together would no doubt be a tricky deal to make. Jackman however has it all figured out: “(Smiling) I don’t see the impediment! I’m like, okay you’ve got three studios, just split it three ways in terms of the cost, and happy days it’s all coming together! I would love to… I’m in for it, I’m totally up for it because I think that would be really exciting for fans across the board.”
Also starring Will Yun Lee (Total Recall), Svetlana Khodchenkova (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy), Hiroyuki Sanada (The Last Samurai), Hal Yamanouchi (The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou), Brian Tee (The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift) and newcomers Tao Okamoto and Rila Fukushima, The Wolverine hits UK cinemas on July 25th and opens in North America the following day.
Originally published July 12, 2013. Updated April 11, 2018.
