It’s no secret that things aren’t exactly going swimmingly at Disney’s typically-lucrative Marvel Studios division.
A quick glance at the 2023 box office receipts will confirm as much (or you can just listen to screeching Disney execs, too).
Given the horrific 2023, as well as the over-saturation and general malaise with the superhero film genre of late, there’s quite a bit riding on the upcoming “Deadpool & Wolverine” film — the first R-rated superhero film under Disney’s purview.
(Previous Deadpool movies, as well as the R-rated “Logan,” came under Fox’s banner due to a tangled web of licensing issues.)
“Deadpool & Wolverine” will feature the return of Ryan Reynolds as the foul-mouthed mercenary Deadpool, and that alone has fans of the franchise excited.
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But even more exciting than Reynold’s ballyhooed return? Hugh Jackman’s return to don the cowl of the legendary X-Men enforcer, Wolverine.
Jackman last portrayed Wolverine in 2017’s epic “Logan,” a film that gives Jackman’s character a fitting conclusion and send-off.
It was such a perfect end for Wolverine, in fact, that Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige had previously told Jackman never to return to the iconic role.
“I said, ‘Let me give you a piece of advice, Hugh. Don’t come back,’” Feige recalled in an interview with Empire magazine. “‘You had the greatest ending in history with Logan. That’s not something we should undo.’”
Are you excited for “Deadpool & Wolverine”?
Spoilers: “Logan” ends with Wolverine (who canonically has always gone by “Logan” as his most oft-used alias) dying to protect a young mutant girl who happens to have similar powers to him.
But apart from the finality of the conclusion, the film also allows the wrathful Wolverine character to atone for much of that rage and death in his past.
To Feige’s credit, the beleaguered Marvel Studios president was 100 percent correct that Jackman’s run as Wolverine truly should have ended in 2017.
So then why is Jackman returning to the role over seven years later?
The Empire piece tries to frame this as a role that Jackman truly wanted to return to, and there’s no reason to doubt that.
But it takes two to tango, and Marvel obviously had to sign off on bringing back a character that had such a noble sendoff in “Logan.”
To that end, it’s pretty clear what Feige is admitting: He’s out of ideas, and he desperately needs a box office win after the likes of 2023 duds such as “The Marvels” and “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.”
Marvel Studios isn’t just dipping back into a well-used well, but it’s doing so at the cost of re-writing an incredible film in its own right. Who cares about that perfect narrative ending when there’s oodles of cash to be made?
It’s an ending to a film, that by Feige’s own admission, shouldn’t be retconned, but here he is as studio head, eagerly awaiting the release of “Deadpool & Wolverine” to mostly do just that.
Yes, the Wolverine in “Deadpool” is not the same one as the one in “Logan” due to multiple timelines and alternate universe hijinks, but at the end of the day, it’s still Jackman’s portrayal of Wolverine.
To call Disney and Marvel Studios “creatively bankrupt” in 2024 is hardly a hot take, but that doesn’t make it any less jarring to see just how far they’ve fallen.
“Deadpool & Wolverine” will hit theaters July 26, 2024.
