The Wolverine was quietly removed from Disney Plus this week. The Mouse House’s streaming service has been periodically adding Fox’s Marvel movies to its library over the past 12 months, but the problem with these older films is that they usually come with pre-existing rights deals that have to be fulfilled. That’s what’s happened in this case, as though the Hugh Jackman vehicle went up on D+ in September, it’s now been taken down.
Unlike other streaming services, Disney Plus doesn’t tend to advertise when titles leave, but we can assume in the case of The Wolverine that it’s down to a previous licensing agreement which needs to play out before it can return to the platform at a later date. This only applies in the US, by the way, as those in other territories will still be able to catch the movie on the site.
2013’s The Wolverine was the second of three spinoffs for the hero, following 2009’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine and coming before 2017’s Logan. While Origins is widely panned and Logan received universal acclaim, The Wolverine fell somewhere in the middle, with everyone agreeing that it’s a pretty solid entry in the X-franchise but not one of the best. Director James Mangold’s effort shows some signs of the brilliance that he later brought to Logan, though.
As the synopsis puts it, “lured to a Japan he hasn’t seen since World War II, century-old mutant Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) finds himself in a shadowy realm of yakuza and samurai.” Alongside Jackman, the film stars Tao Okamoto, Rila Fukushima and Famke Janssen, reprising her role as Jean Grey. Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen also cameo as Professor X and Magneto in a post-credits scene.
As mentioned above, The Wolverine will eventually return to Disney Plus, but we just don’t know when. In the meantime, there are still a bunch of other X-Men movies available on the site if you’re craving some classic Wolvie action.