Back in March, 20th Century Fox laid out the future of its Marvel properties by announcing that X-Men: Days of Future Past and The Fantastic Four would be joined by X-Men: Apocalypse, The Fantastic Four 2, an as-yet-unrevealed movie, and a sequel to last year’s The Wolverine. Assuming Hugh Jackman appears in Apocalypse (and doesn’t cameo in either of the Fantastic Four movies), the James Mangold directed solo threequel would mark his ninth outing as Wolverine, and now the star has suggested that it could also be his last… if he decides to do it in the first place.
“I don’t know yet [if I’ll return for The Wolverine sequel],” Jackman tells SFX. “We’re talking it through. I still am very ambitious for the character. And tonally I feel like we corrected the ship with the last one. But I feel we can still go further, in a way. If I did another one I’m 99.9% sure it would be the last, so that will inform what it is for me.” Asked if he would consider returning if the script is as good as The Wolverine, Jackman responded: “I don’t know if that will get me across the line, man. I think it has to be better. I can still see where we can improve on the last one. I love the intimacy of that story, I liked the small stuff, I liked that it was a little unexpected. I don’t want to get into specifics, because it just upsets people, but there are certain parts of that story where I felt we were predictable. And I don’t think you need to do that with Wolverine. What’s exciting is that you can make it a more interior story, and people actually prefer that. And that was good to show and convince everyone – especially everyone who greenlights the movies!”
And finally, he also suggested that we might finally get to see an adaptation of Mark Millar and Steve McNiven’s Old Man Logan: “Of course we’re looking at Old Man Logan, because that may be the only option left at this point! [laughs] We are looking at a lot of different storylines. No one has jumped out. You can tell from my answer that we’re still working it out. I’m working with Jim Mangold, which is exciting. Jim came on board The Wolverine after Darren Aronofsky left, so he inherited it. And of all the things that Jim can do, one of the great things he does is develop scripts. I’m excited to see what we can come up with, but I haven’t signed on signed on. I’m genuinely at that point where unless it’s better than the last one I’m not going to do it.”
Is it time for Jackman to call it a day, or would you like to see him returning for another solo outing? Let us know your thoughts….
Originally published May 1, 2014. Updated April 13, 2018.
