Recently, to the delight of fans, it was announced that the star Hugh Jackman will return to the role that inaugurated him: that of the wily hero Wolverine. This is the tenth time he has played the role on the big screen, making him not only the actor who has most often played a comic book hero on the big screen, but also the record holder for the most times he has played it the same character played the cinema in general.
The news doesn’t end there, however. To continue the fans’ euphoria, the announcement was accompanied during the release dead pool 3a huge fan favorite in its own right now in the hands of Disney and the MCU.
I can’t imagine Wolverine without Hugh Jackman. Just like you can’t imagine Deadpool without Ryan Reynolds. But it wasn’t always like that. And if you go back exactly 22 years in the past, the path for the mutant Wolverine could have been very different. It turns out Jackman wasn’t the main choice for the role in 2000’s XMen, how could he after all since he was an actor who was completely unknown to everyone.
As such, other artists were considered by the studio and producers to take on Wolverine in the first XMen film on the big screen. Find out who they were below.
When the first XMen (2000) started rolling, Russell Crowe was director Bryan Singer’s first choice to play the mutant protagonist Wolverine. It must be taken into account that the actor was many kilos lighter at the time and was significantly younger. On the other hand, his personality was similar to the character’s, meaning Crowe was shortlived and always in trouble a worthy bad boy.
Despite Singer’s wishes, the actor turned down the role and continued starring in his biggest hit: Gladiator — not to mention taking home the Oscar for best actor, on top of the film’s accolade. It wasn’t such a bad exchange.
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When Russell Crowe turned down the role of Wolverine in XMen (2000), producers had to go back to plan B. You have to keep in mind that superhero comic book adaptations in the early 2000s weren’t viewed with good eyes by today, a risky bet. And the more surreal and imaginative the subject, the worse.
None of that stopped the filmmakers from buying that noise and proving them right, forever changing the scenario of current blockbusters. Back then, the production even cast Dougray Scott in the lead role of the film, the antihero Wolverine.
You may even wonder who the actor is, but at the time he was on the verge of becoming the star of the moment, and perhaps he would have been had an accident not knocked him out of the role. Scott played the villain Sean Ambrose in Mission: Impossible 2 and was injured during filming. Hugh Jackman is still grateful to this day.
It seems unbelievable, but the fashion that has called for Danny DeVito in the skin of Wolverine is not new. In case you didn’t know, recently some wacky netizens who love to see the circus on fire petitioned Marvel to cast little senior Danny DeVito, who already played the villain Penguin in Batman Returns (1992). by Wolverine. The internet has really given a voice to a lot of crazy people.
Aside from being unrelated to body or age, the actor’s choice is one of the most random of all time. But there are precedents. It turns out that in the mid 80’s90’s James Cameron was involved in a possible production of XMen for the cinema (alongside another Marvel hero, Spider-Man read the link below).
But Cameron would not direct, just producing for his then wife, Kathryn Bigelow. And on this project, the best choice for the angry little guy would be the scowling Brit Bob Hoskins. It would be odd, to say the least, given that the late actor Danny DeVito was just a step ahead.
Also read: Spider Man (2002) turns 20 | Discover the different versions of the film that happened FAST
It was easier for fans to envision comic book heroes played by movie action heroes, even if it detracted from good acting, than to see a talented actor yet unrelated to his rolemate. That kind of gasp has been proven wrong so many times we don’t even have hands to count. Michael Keaton, Heath Ledger and Gal Gadot are just a few examples. Even within the franchise, we have Shakespearean devotee Ian McKellen, who was considered too old by fans to play Magneto at the time.
Today we can no longer imagine anyone except Michael Fassbender. In this section, fans promoted Belgian fighter JeanClaude Van Damme to play Wolverine. The martial artist was in his prime at the time, and he even mentions the name Wolverine in TimeCop (1994), perhaps a reference to his lineup. And he definitely has the stature. However, it would severely hamper the function due to its, shall we say, nonexistent performance. Just look at Street Fighter.
Series 24’s perennial Jack Bauer, Kiefer Sutherland, is another who almost embodied the furious clawclipping mutant owner in cinema. It turns out that Sutherland is a fan of both the XMen character and the comic book, and made sure his name stayed in the conversation with producers throughout the planning of the project in the ’80s and ’90s Production of the film took a long time to get underway, the actor eventually missed his chance and starred in the aforementioned series, which was released a year after the first XMen.
Another star of the ’80s and ’90s targeted for the role of mutant Wolverine was internet muse Keanu Reeves. Have you ever wondered what the actor would look like in the role? However, Reeves was another who turned down the project.
By this time, the actor was already known for his action roles in films such as Chasers (1991) and Top Speed (1994) and decided to star in the hit The Matrix and its two sequels. In fact, the aesthetic of the first XMen owes a lot to the original Matrix, be it in the creative fight choreography or the style of the allblack uniforms. Keanu eventually agreed to be a comic book character in the films, starring in the obscure Constantine (2005), whose sequel was confirmed by Warner.
Today, Mel Gibson is a “problem boy” who has been snubbed by Hollywood for its toxic quality, whether in the antiSemitic comments or in the outpouring of violence against his exwife in films that would equate to directtovideo releases something, which is on the territory of Steven Seagal and Dolph Lundgren. But going back a few decades, as I said, Mel Gibson was on top of the world.
Lethal Weapon would serve as a dividing line in his career, and in the 1990s the star also became a fullfledged director, earning multiple Oscars for Braveheart, one of his masterpieces. During that time, Gibson was being targeted for the role of Wolverine — and there are even some similarities between the character and the actor. Standing on the crest of the wave, the star wanted nothing to do with the project.
Rounding out the list is little Jackie Erale Haley who has been around since the 80’s although many don’t know him very well. It would be interesting to see what the actor would do with the role of Wolverine. He’s one of the runaway heartthrob types that’s present in many of the candidates on the list. And where is it written that Wolverine is a heartthrob? Even in Hugh Jackman’s interpretation that made many women sigh, there’s something there, after all, we still have the actor’s body. With Haley that would change and we would see the character from a different angle. Years later, the actor would finally live as a comic book hero in the alternative and grownup Watchmen (2009). The following year, he also impersonated another iconic character, but this one from horror movies, when he played Freddy Krueger in the remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010).
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