His days of chomping on cigars and calling people “bub” may be over, but Hugh Jackman still likes to reminisce about his time playing Wolverine in Fox’s X-Men universe. Case in point: the Australian actor shared a throwback BTS image on his Instagram account recently, giving a shout-out to two unsung members of the crew in the process.
The snap sees Jackman in costume, complete with Adamantium claws, on set of X-Men: The Last Stand. On either side of him are producer Ralph Winter and assistant director Lee Cleary. “Two unsung heroes of the early years,” Jackman wrote in his caption. “Ralph Winter and Lee Cleary.”
It’s fitting that Jackman should be reflecting on those people who made the X-Men franchise what it was, as that same franchise recently ended. Dark Phoenix arrived in June and was widely talked about as the final entry in Fox’s X-saga, following the Disney merger which means Marvel Studios now have the rights back to mutantkind. There is The New Mutants set to come out next April, but no one really knows what’s going to happen with that.
What this means is that Marvel will have to find a new Wolverine to take over from Jackman, as they’ll invariably want to reboot the X-Men’s most popular – and profitable – member. Fans have already put forward several names for the job, like Taron Egerton and Daniel Radcliffe, but we’re yet to get any sort of official comment on the situation. Kevin Feige did confirm though that the MCU’s version of the X-Men is on the way in Phase 5 at Comic-Con last month.
As you can tell from the countless comments on Jackman’s post, however, it’s going to be hard to find anyone who can measure up to his iconic take on Logan. The star inhabited the role and made it his own for 17 years – even longer than Robert Downey Jr. played Iron Man. For now, we’ll just have to wait and see how Marvel approaches this problem in a few years’ time.