Somewhere in the multiverse, Hugh Jackman never became Wolverine.
That alternate reality was nearly our own. When 20th Century Fox was casting X-Men in the late ’90s, the role of the X-Men’s most popular mutant almost went to Russell Crowe—but the actor turned it down. Viggo Mortensen passed on the Adamantium claws to become the eventual king of Gondor in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. It was Scottish actor Dougray Scott who eventually won the role. But after suffering an accident while filming Mission Impossible II, Scott could no longer star in the X-Men’s big-screen debut. And so, like Lou Gehrig or Tom Brady, Jackman came in as a replacement, and then never looked back.
After the success of 2000’s X-Men, Jackman would go on to appear as Wolverine in eight more films, including what was supposed to be his final performance in 2017’s Logan. The Oscar-nominated film, directed by James Mangold, was the perfect send-off for Jackman and the iconic character he played for almost two decades. But next week, the Australian actor will be back to star alongside Ryan Reynolds in the blockbuster movie of the summer, Deadpool & Wolverine.
Jackman landing the Wolverine role is just one chapter in the much larger story of how Marvel Studios’ upcoming film came together. Over the past several months, I’ve been working on an audio feature for The Ringer that tells that story. This podcast follows the journey of how Deadpool and Wolverine made the leap from the comics to the big screen to become 20th Century Fox’s most valuable superheroes, and how they’ve now been entrusted to lead the MCU out of its current slump in the Multiverse Saga.
I interviewed filmmakers who have worked on X-Men- and Deadpool-related productions over the years, including X-Men: The Animated Series writers Eric and Julia Lewald, X-Men and X2 screenwriter David Hayter, Deadpool director Tim Miller, and Simon Kinberg, who became the architect of Fox’s X-Men universe after producing X-Men: First Class in 2011. I also spoke to a number of entertainment journalists who helped provide the wider context surrounding Marvel’s creative trajectory and its new focus on characters that were once exclusive to 20th Century Fox.
In May, I did my final interview for the audio feature, with the director who’s helming Marvel’s long-awaited team-up: Shawn Levy, who has previously directed Jackman in Real Steel and Reynolds in Free Guy and The Adam Project. Below is that interview, including bonus material from our conversation that didn’t make it into the podcast. You can read Levy’s thoughts on how Deadpool & Wolverine was created, the legacy of 20th Century Fox’s Marvel movies, introducing Deadpool to the MCU, and more below, and then listen to the full episode on The Ringer-Verse.
I think it came as a surprise to everyone that Hugh Jackman would be reprising his role as Wolverine after Logan. Could you tell me how Jackman got involved in this project?
Well, as all of us know, fans—of which I’m one, by the way—have wanted this Deadpool-Wolverine pairing for a hell of a long time. Ryan and I spent several months with our cowriters working on possible stories for Deadpool 3, which is how we referred to it back then. And in real life, it happens to be that Ryan, Hugh, and I are all very good friends. But we just assumed that Logan stuck the landing. Hugh had always been really clear about the fact that he was hanging up the claws and at peace with that decision. And in the summer of 2022, while Ryan and I were still very much hashing out possible ideas for this movie, Hugh called out of the blue and basically said, “I’ve had an epiphany. I want to come back and I want to be a part of this Deadpool movie. For myself as Hugh Jackman and for audiences, I want the joy of what that duo might be.”
So, contrary to a lot of rumors out there, it wasn’t the result of Ryan or I chasing Hugh. It wasn’t the result of [Kevin] Feige and Marvel begging Hugh. Something shifted inside Hugh that gave him clarity about what this pairing could be. He wanted it in his life and he wanted it for this character.
Within a day of that phone call, what had been a bunch of vague, general, possible ideas for the story instantly crystallized. The arrival of Wolverine into this story, as Ryan often says, it suddenly gave us our “why.” Why make this movie? Why is it different? Well, the answer is Wolverine.
Now that this team-up is actually happening, what do you think works so well in the pairing of the Deadpool and Wolverine characters?
There’s two different answers, and I think it’s both. On a comedic level, any time you force two characters who are mismatched to be together for an extended period of time, that’s an instant recipe for comedy. And whether it’s Planes, Trains, [and] Automobiles, Midnight Run, 48 Hrs. … the legacy of oil-and-water two-handers is extensive. And again, it’s always based in conflict. Watching conflict between characters who are forced together is kind of fun. Donkey and Shrek come to mind. [Laughs.] So I think there’s a perfect matchup from a comedic point of view based on how different the characters are.
But on a more profound and maybe more dramatic level, these are two characters who are both haunted with regret, haunted with trauma. In the case of Wade, it’s obviously his sickness and what he did to survive, and how he feels about himself in the aftermath of that decision. And for Logan, it’s a couple of centuries’ worth of behavior that he’s not proud of. So you’ve got this deeper level of shame and regret that haunts both characters.
Logan and the two Deadpool movies utilize their R-ratings very effectively, but in very different ways. Logan is dark and somber, while Deadpool is raunchy and over-the-top funny. How did you and the rest of your team find a balance between these two types of tonal approaches?
This movie is very much a Deadpool sequel, but by virtue of it being Deadpool & Wolverine, we weren’t trying to replicate the formula of Deadpool 1 and 2. It’s definitely loyal to the DNA of the franchise. It’s audacious. It literally burns the rule book. There is very much this liberating anything-goes, batshit-crazy energy to the movie like there is in Deadpool 1 and 2.
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But you’re right: Logan, Deadpool movies, they use the R rating in different ways. Certainly this movie has a lot of heart, but it is not dark and it is not a drama in the way that Logan was. One thing that is similar between Logan and the Deadpool movies is the way violence and action is treated in an R-rated way, and we don’t shy away from that. It is definitely an R-rated film. The North Star was always “How can we build this movie for audience delight?” At the end of the day, we wanna make you laugh, we wanna entertain the fuck out of people, and we want to explore this relationship between two guys who, most of the time, would be happiest killing each other. But in those moments where they don’t, in those moments where they maybe confront the ways in which they’re also the same and not only different, that’s where the movie gets really interesting.
So it’s an R-rated movie, but it doesn’t use that rating just for the hell of it. We use it for comedy, we definitely use it for language, we definitely use it for action and violence, but it’s all in the service of audience joy. That was the spine for every decision we made on the tone of this picture.
The fact that this is Marvel Studios’ first R-rated film has been a big topic. What was the process of getting that R rating like? And how does it feel to have that milestone as the first R-rated MCU movie?
For starters, I would say whatever anxiety I had going in about working within the MCU, working with Marvel Studios … the fact that this is so different in some ways from all other MCU movies worked to our benefit. Because early on, day one, Feige, Lou D’Esposito, the whole team at Marvel, and frankly, Disney, they knew what we were when we came in the door. We made it clear this is going to be the tone. We’re not softening the edges. We’re not going to dilute it. We’re going to be off-the-wall audacious in the way that all of us want a Deadpool movie to be. So there was buy-in from the jump.
And as a result, I have to tell you, even though we are the first, we were able to operate with massive—frankly, near-absolute—creative freedom. I’ve made 14 movies or something like that. It’s the first one for Marvel, but I had every bit of the creative autonomy that I’ve had on my original movies, and it’s been a joy to collaborate with Marvel.
There’s obviously a lot of history in Fox’s X-Men movies and the Deadpool movies, as well as the 30-plus MCU movies, and this is a really big step in merging all those franchises. What went into figuring out how to bring these universes together, while also honoring those legacies?
That’s a big question. But to back up and say something that I should have said in my prior answer, one thing that was really fun about joining the MCU with Wolverine and Deadpool is staying true to the grounded, rooted-in-reality nature of Deadpool and Wolverine. So the characters are grounded. The approach to this story is grounded. So we weren’t gonna suddenly go like, “We’re in the MCU, so let’s go with digital environments and shoot everything on a soundstage.” We rejected that from the get-go. But we did get access to all the mythology, and character riches, and resources of Marvel Studios. I felt like a very, very lucky filmmaker that I got the best of both worlds.
Without giving anything away, I’ll just say that Ryan and I, as cowriters, as the producers, and as the star and director, we came to this moment with a fan’s love of that legacy that you’re talking about. We know what the legacy of these Marvel characters and movies means to people, because that’s what it means to us. And so we not only made sure to honor that legacy in how we protect and caretake these characters, but in fact, as you might be able to tell from the trailers, but you’ll definitely be able to tell from the movie, the acknowledgment of that legacy is itself part of the story. So it’s not just part of how we made the movie, it’s part of the story we tell. And that means those roots run deep.
Cameos have always been a big part of Deadpool movies and superhero movies in general. We’ve seen that characters like Pyro will appear in the film. What went into picking cameos that were right for this story?
The only thing I’ll say about that is we didn’t choose supporting characters or cameos based on “wow factor” alone. We picked them based on who made sense in this part of this particular story. So it was always story-driven and oftentimes it was what would be best for this moment in this story, but would also be wildly unexpected. So it’s not like I’ve been sitting here for over a decade thinking about Aaron Stanford’s Pyro. I remember the character, but it just made sense in a weird and very specific kind of way for this story. And that same rule applied to every character we inject into the story. Not from some list of wow factors, but from the screenplay and what the screenplay wanted.
That being said, there’s a few “wow” moments for sure.
The TVA is also featured prominently in the trailers. Was there any collaboration with the Loki team, whether that be the creatives of the series or the production designers, on how the TVA would be incorporated and represented in this film?
Yeah, great question. I would say the advantage of working within this Marvel system is it really is a family atmosphere and a collaborative culture. So when it was time to design new sets within the TVA or use Minuteman or other touchstones of TVA mythology, the group that did Loki were always a phone call or an email away. The art department files from Loki related to the TVA, those were accessible. We definitely didn’t want to simply replicate what we’ve seen in other Marvel stories, but we did want to honor it. And we did want to be consistent with the very specific aesthetic, for instance, that has been established via Loki, in regard to the TVA. We would call them, or we would ask for their illustrations, or we would take an illustration of ours and run it by some of the people who had worked on other aspects of the TVA. So there was a collaboration in-house that always kept us honest, made sure we were pushing the mythology and the aesthetics further without ever abandoning or running counter to what’s been established already.
But [I’ll] also add … Sometimes it feels like you need to do your homework before you watch a movie to understand a movie. Or you need to have seen seven other shows or movies to understand this particular show or movie. That is not the case with Deadpool & Wolverine. Fans of the Marvel Universe will definitely be rewarded with a plethora of Easter eggs and references and nods to antecedents. But for the fresh, non-fluent viewer, we made sure to provide on-ramps within the movie to what they need to know to enjoy the movie.
Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick have been writing the Deadpool movies ever since the start and then you obviously have Ryan Reynolds, too. What was it like having that type of continuity between the three films from a creative standpoint?
Well, I will firstly say that it all starts and ends with Ryan Reynolds. He famously spent years wanting to play Deadpool and make a Deadpool movie, through years where no one believed in him or it. Ryan has always heard and seen the tone of this character and franchise in his very bones. And so having Ryan alongside me in so many different roles—including cowriter—was frankly … it’s unimaginable to consider this journey without him.
Ryan has this intuition and instinct for what a Deadpool movie wants to be. And that is always our shepherd, if you will. Wernick and Reese, who wrote those Deadpool movies with Ryan, they’re also keepers of the faith and keepers of the tone. So for Zeb Wells and I, who were the other writers on this, for the five of us to work together for a long time—through outline, through various drafts of the screenplay—it was really fun. Because not only was there a consistency with the past, but this new dynamic between all of us resulted in some really fresh storytelling that is still very faithful to the Deadpool tone, but takes it places that maybe the other Deadpool movies, and for that matter, the other Wolverine movies, haven’t yet done.
So it was just a very fluid collaboration, but one that was always kept super honest by the presence of Paul, Rhett, and Ryan, who have written and made these movies before and whose instincts are bedrock.
Production was halted last summer amid the Hollywood strikes. What sort of impact did those delays have on the creation of the movie and the final product?
The impact of those strikes, particularly the actors strike, which shut us down for a few months in the middle of filming—like, literally we were on day 35 of 70. That was a hard time. It was obviously a hard time because a lot of people weren’t making a living. The only silver lining in regard to this movie is that while I was unable to shoot, I was able to edit.
I spent those months editing the half of the movie that I had shot. And when you sit in the edit room, you learn about your movie and you listen to your movie, and the movie tells you what it is and the movie tells you what it wants. So what that meant is when I went back for part two, I knew what the movie was. I was able to hone performances. I was able to rewrite certain scenes. I was able to shift and lean into stuff that I knew the movie wanted most. And that’s a luxury you never get in live action. It’s a luxury that every animated movie gets. An animated movie will get made three, four—in the case of Pixar, sometimes half a dozen or more—times. But this was a rare opportunity with a live-action movie to learn those things midway through, and I think the movie is better for it.
After working with Jackman on Real Steel, what’s it like coming back around to work on this project with him returning as his iconic character?
The key takeaway from that time, from making Real Steel in 2010, was this ease between Hugh and I. And I didn’t know back then how deep and how rich a character Logan could really be. And frankly, to Hugh’s credit and to Mangold’s credit, those movies—particularly the last one that Mangold and Hugh made together in Logan—really showed me how profound a character Logan is and how you can make a variety of genre pictures all using the same character of Wolverine. Whether it’s Days of Future Past, or The Wolverine, or Logan: same character, very different movies. And over the decade-plus since I made Real Steel, I came to realize just how fascinating a character Logan can be.
And I also realized with a big, clear idea, a sequel can avoid repetition. A sequel can avoid being derivative. It can be fresh and it can stand on new, strong legs of its own. And that’s what I wanted to do with Deadpool & Wolverine.
You’ve worked on big blockbuster movies in the past, like Free Guy, and series like Stranger Things. How did those types of experiences prepare you for taking on a Marvel project like this?
That’s a great question. I mean, the first answer that comes to mind is I am so grateful for my years on Stranger Things because it has really trained me to keep my mouth shut. I have a huge mouth, and Stranger Things has put such a fear of God in my body that keeps my mouth shut most of the time. And I’m very grateful for that, because I definitely have needed that skill for a Marvel movie.
Beyond that, I have made a lot of big, complicated movies and shows, and it’s given me a real comfort, a confidence certainly, but also just a comfort with scale and with the complexity of a story that requires so much preparation, so many effects, so many practical effects, so many digital effects. And it’s taught me that my job as a director is to know about all of that complexity, but then quiet the daunting noise of all that and just focus on this scene, this moment, this performance, this character. And it’s just trained my mind and my creative process to zoom in when I need to and be micro-focused on the moment at hand. The more you work on storytelling at this scale, the better you get at that zoom-in, zoom-out dynamic that you have to use 500 times a day.
When you look back at how long Jackman and Reynolds have been playing their respective roles, and how long fans have been waiting for this team-up to happen, what are your thoughts on the journey that this has been? And how does it feel to be a part of it now that it’s finally happening?
Well, I’ll give you a few short answers to that. The first is that I already feel how sad it’s gonna be to no longer be making this movie. I have loved making this movie. It has owned my frickin’ soul. It has been the most all-consuming, obsessive, creative infatuation of my life. But I have loved it. And it’s a real privilege not only to play in a sandbox with this many toys, but to tell a story involving two icons, two iconic movie stars in their most iconic characters together. That is a delight.
And lastly, when you make a movie like this, you’re telling a specific story. But I’m always humbled and aware of the fact that you’re inheriting decades of cultural love. You’re inheriting a culture’s history with these characters. And so I’m telling this story, but the blood that runs through that body is the Marvel lore, through comics and movies and shows. The blood that’s pumping inside that body is our collective adoration of the Marvel world and the mythology of these characters that runs deep.
This interview was edited and condensed for clarity.
