UPDATE: With Jackman reportedly out of the mutant picture, a viral rumor pegging Henry Cavill as Marvel’s new Wolverine is now spreading fast, though Marvel has confirmed nothing.
Hugh Jackman may have crashed Marvel’s D23 panel by video, but Deadline came away reading it as a goodbye, at least where the X-Men reboot is concerned.
In the trade’s D23 takeaways, box office editor Anthony D’Alessandro runs through Disney’s 2028 slate and stops on X-Men for May 5, 2028, noting that in Kevin Feige’s hands, the movie won’t resemble the Bryan Singer era.
Then the kicker, based on Jackman’s beam-in: “he ain’t coming back as Wolverine.”
That is Deadline’s read of the room, not a sourced report, so file it under analysis. It also happens to line up with what has been sitting on the table for years.
What The Beam-In Was
Feige teed up Avengers: Doomsday as uniting the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, and the original X-Men with a cast of “literally everyone except Wolverine,” which cued Jackman’s surprise video pitching himself for a spot in the movie while Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool heckled off screen.
Feige moved on without an answer, and Jackman and Reynolds have since posted the clip themselves with matching “hostage video” captions.
Fans are calling it confirmation for Doomsday. Marvel still hasn’t said the words.
The X-Men segment that followed is where Deadline’s point lands.
Seven names walked out on stage: Sadie Sink, Kit Connor, Christopher Abbott, Samara Weaving, Inde Navarrette, Maya Boyd, and Adam Driver.
No Wolverine, and the closest Marvel’s X-Men segment got to the character was a bit about a different movie.
Marvel Has Talked About Recasting Wolverine Since The Fox Deal
None of this is new.
Back in December 2017, the same week Disney announced it was buying Fox, THR reported Disney and Marvel executives were excited about the possibility of recasting Wolverine and bringing him into the MCU fold.
Nearly nine years later, that thinking has never gone away.
Jackman came out of retirement for Deadpool & Wolverine, the movie did $1.3 billion, and the conversation shifted to keeping him.
Underneath it, the replacement talk kept going.
Our insiders told us Henry Cavill has had talks with Marvel about playing Wolverine in the MCU, a claim other scoopers later echoed.
Marvel Characters, Inc. filed a fresh “Wolverine” trademark covering film and TV in December, and DanielRPK claimed a new Wolverine project is in development at Marvel Studios.
All are rumor, but all point in the same direction.
The Long Haul Rumors Aren’t The Contradiction They Look Like
Industry rumors have repeatedly claimed Feige wants to keep Jackman around as Wolverine for as long as possible after Deadpool & Wolverine, and the same rumor thread has long said the reboot’s core team may start without Logan for exactly that reason.
The way it has always been laid out, Jackman stays on the Avengers event side and possible solo or team-up projects, including the long-rumored Hulk vs. Wolverine, while the new X-Men get built without him.
The alleged Doomsday plot leak, still unconfirmed, puts his Wolverine in the opening sequence alongside Deadpool.
Deadline’s read draws the line right where the rumors drew it: Jackman is the Multiverse Saga’s Wolverine. The reboot gets its own.
Jackman has managed to say both things himself.
He told PBS last month he’s playing the character “till I’m 90”, and in the same conversation, asked about a successor, said he hopes someone comes in, does whatever the f*** they want, and makes it their own.
That is not a man expecting to be the last Wolverine.
Where That Leaves The Reboot
Feige said on stage this was the first group of actors, with more X-Men casting to come, a detail the “where are the men” backlash skipped.
Wolverine, Beast, and Magneto are the open seats everyone is watching.
The age math argues for a new Logan if there is one at all. A 22-year-old Cyclops, a 24-year-old Jean Grey, a 34-year-old Emma Frost, and a 40-year-old Professor X is a team built to grow across a decade of movies. Jackman is 57.
Holding Wolverine back is also how the comics did it.
Logan debuted against the Hulk in 1974 and didn’t join the X-Men until Giant-Size X-Men #1 the following year, so a reboot that lets Cyclops, Jean, and Storm breathe first isn’t Marvel dodging the character.
It’s Marvel reading the source material (finally).
And when a new Logan does arrive, remember how the last one got the job. Fox handed Wolverine to an unknown Australian soap actor in 2000, which is the same bet Marvel just made with Storm.
Avengers: Doomsday opens December 18, and X-Men hits theaters May 5, 2028. Watch the full D23 Marvel panel here, meet the rest of the team with Sadie Sink’s Jean Grey, Inde Navarrette’s Rogue, and Adam Driver’s Nathaniel Milbury, and find everything on Doomsday at our hub and everything on the reboot in our X-Men guide.
