Hugh Jackman may have been engaged in a back-and-forth trolling battle with Ryan Reynolds that’s raged on for years, but the former Wolverine still underestimated the power of social media and the speed at which scuttlebutt travels online when he posted a couple of fairly innocuous images online.
The actor shared fan art of the adamantium-infused mutant’s signature claws, and another picture that showed him arm-in-arm with Kevin Feige. Before you even had time to blink, the internet was awash with all sorts of rumors that Jackman was teasing a comeback in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, swiftly followed by unconfirmed and uncorroborated reports that he was appearing in any number of projects.
Except, that really wasn’t the case. The Feige image was clearly a tribute to Richard Donner, who produced Bryan Singer’s X-Men. Jackman met the former Marvel Studios boss when he was sent to the airport to pick up the unknown star after he’d been cast as Dougray Scott’s replacement two weeks into shooting, and they’ve remained friends ever since.
In a new interview to promote upcoming sci-fi thriller Reminiscence, Jackman profusely apologized for getting everyone’s hopes up and breaking the internet.
“I literally was re-posting fan art and I do it quite a bit because I just love it. And I love the fans. And then I was off doing something and I came back and I’m like, ‘Oh, I think I broke the Internet. No, no, no, no. Guys, sorry. Didn’t mean that. I really didn’t mean that. I’m really sorry’. And I thought, ‘No one’s going to believe me’. But that was the case. And you guys are just too fast for me. Clearly way too fast and smarter than me. I just love the fans. And so, when cool things come my way, I’m going to pass it on.”
Let’s face it, Jackman isn’t the first guy in his 50s to make a social media faux pas, and there’s a thousand people that have done much worse. As much as we’d love to see him back on our screens as Wolverine, he’s been a lot more definitive about his retirement than usual on the Reminiscence press circuit, probably because he doesn’t want to make the same mistake again and have everyone furiously refreshing Twitter to see if any more potential news about a return has broken.