Simon Kinberg, the director of X-Men: Dark Phoenix, has revealed another reason why Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine isn’t in the film.
We’ve all known for some time that Hugh Jackman has retired from playing Wolverine after playing the character for many years on the big screen, including to critical acclaim in Logan. But with the Dark Phoenix storyline typically featuring the character so heavily, was there another reason why Wolverine didn’t show up?
Well, according to director Simon Kinberg, apart from Jackman retiring, they decided to bring back Wolverine wasn’t a good idea because of the age difference between Jackman and Sophie Turner, who plays Jean. Speaking to Rolling Stone, the director said:
“If you know the Dark Phoenix story, you’d want to really service the love story between Logan and Jean. And I think the notion of Hugh Jackman, as great as he looks for his age, and Sophie Turner — it didn’t sit well with me. Or anyone else!”
SEE ALSO: Read our review of X-Men: Dark Phoenix here
Kinberg said he also didn’t want to detract from the central part of the story: “There was an element of this being Jean’s story. And I was committing so fully to it that I didn’t want to run the risk of pulling away from Jean by going to the well of a fan-favorite character in these movies. I wanted this to be a very different experience of seeing an X-Men movie.”
There you have it! It certainly would have been weird to see Jackman and Turner play out a romance considering their age difference. Who knows, perhaps many years down the line we will see yet another adaptation of the story in the MCU, this time featuring Jean and Wolverine.
SEE ALSO: X-Men: Dark Phoenix director thinks the Weapon X story should be redone
X-Men: Dark Phoenix sees Simon Kinberg directing a cast that includes franchise veterans Michael Fassbender (Magneto), James McAvoy (Professor X), Jennifer Lawrence (Mystique), Nicholas Hoult (Beast), Alexandra Shipp (Storm), Sophie Turner (Jean Grey), Tye Sheridan (Cyclops), Kodi Smit-McPhee (Nightcrawler) and Evan Peters (Quicksilver) alongside new additions Kota Eberhardt (The Persian Connection) as Selene, Andrew Stehlin (Hacksaw Ridge) as Red Lotus, and Jessica Chastain (Molly’s Game) and Lamar Johnson (Kings).
