Yes, the countdowns to “Deadpool & Wolverine” have started; they are real; there are websites dedicated to it, and as of right now, the film is 85 days away from release. The irony around it all might be Marvel’s release strategy. Following the failure of “The Marvels” (and the 2023 strikes that delayed everything), Marvel and Kevin Feige have decided not to rush things and release only one movie this year, “Deadpool & Wolverine.” However, the way the movie industry seems to be sitting around waiting for the film makes it feel like Marvel could have easily sustained more than one film in 2024. Oh well, shoulda, woulda, coulda, I guess.
Regardless, ever since the first official trailer hit, promotion for the film has kicked into higher gear. And with the movie on the cover of Empire magazine this month, that brings new photos, and interviews from the cast. Strangely enough, not much of the plot has been revealed, other than the TVA (Time Variance Authority) handpicking Wade Wilson to seemingly help with some issues with the MCU timeline.
But according to Kevin Feige, there’s a twist to the main plot, and it sounds like a betrayal on the TVA’s part. The TVA show Deadpool The Sacred Timeline is “the most glorious place in the world,” aka where the MCU takes place on Earth 616, and things go awry once he’s hooked.
“Deadpool is very intrigued by that,” Feige told Empire this week, but he suggested that Matthew McFayden’s Paradox TVA agent and his plan might not be what Wade Wilson expected. “He learns soon thereafter that it’s not quite as simple an offer as he thought it was, and the stakes are universe-sized.”
Hugh Jackman has played Wolverine eight times from 2000 to 2017, across various “X-Men” franchise films and spinoffs, but he still promises something new for Wolverine to reveal as a character. Talking about the iconic yellow and blue costume that finally turns up in “Deadpool & Wolverine,” Jackman said the introduction of it also signals something new for Logan.
“We almost did it in ‘The Wolverine,’” Jackman told Empire about including that classic 1980s costume. “But from the moment I put it on here, I was like, ‘How did we never do this?’ It looked so right; it felt so right. I was like, ‘That’s him.’ There are different sides of Wolverine we haven’t seen before in the movies. It was exciting for me.”
Interestingly enough, Marvel’s Kevin Feige says he once urged Jackman not to return. However, it sounds like this was long before “Deadpool & Wolverine” was a reality and probably during the 20th Century Fox days circa the release of “Logan” in 2017 or shortly after. “I said, ‘Let me give you a piece of advice, Hugh. Don’t come back’,” Feige recalled telling the actor. “‘You had the greatest ending in history with ‘Logan.’ That’s not something we should undo.’”
While that sounds crazy, the head of the studio urging an actor not to star as his iconic character, it sounds like they found a workaround for when “Deadpool & Wolverine” became a reality in the fall of 2022. Feige confirms that the Wolverine in this movie is an alt-Wolverine from a different timeline (“correct,” he says), so technically, they don’t have to undo the events of James Mangold’s “Logan” and its wrenching ending, instead pivoting to a similar, but ultimately different character thanks to the multiverse shenanigans
“Deadpool & Wolverine” hits theaters on July 26, 2024. Check out some newly released images by Empire
