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Hugh Jackman Revealed That He Was Almost Fired From The X-Men Franchise

We live in an era where we do not want to see a new Wolverine, just as we don’t wanna see the likes of Iron Man and Captain America replaced. But all good things have to come to an end, and these three best elements of Hollywood have ended their run. Hugh Jackman holds the record of holding a character for the longest period of time along with Patrick Stewart, and there would still be some fans who’d want Jackman to return one last time. But that ship has sailed!

Hugh Jackman X-Men Franchise

But what’s funny is that this wouldn’t have been the case at all. We would not have grown to love Wolverine so much because he might not have been Wolverine in the first place. There’s a current trend where every new actor cast as the Caped Crusader receives a ton of Backlash before becoming the “Best Batman ever.” The internet would have followed the same for Wolverine if people had the luxury of expressing their opinions so freely back then.

Hugh Jackman X-Men Franchise

The reason for this would have been that Jackman was initially a bit skinny for the role, but more importantly, he was taller than Wolverine should have been! You could say that he wasn’t the Comic Accurate casting, and that’s what probably pissed fans back then. Apparently, there was a case where Jackman would have actually been fired before he ever got the chance to play Wolverine on screen.

Hugh Jackman X-Men Franchise

Recently in an interview with Daily Mail UK, Jackman told us about how the biggest opportunity of his career could have been taken away. He said:

“I was told that things weren’t really working out as they hoped. I was about to get fired from my first Hollywood movie – the biggest of my career. I was angry, I went home to my wife and I complained. I was whinging an Olympic level of whinging to Deb, my wife, and moaning about this person and that person. She listened to me very patiently for about an hour and finally she just said, ‘Listen, I think you have just got to trust yourself. You are worrying way too much about what everything else is thinking. Just go back to the character, focus on that, trust your instinct… you’ve got this.’ To me that was love. Someone that believes in you when you don’t fully believe in yourself.”

Hugh Jackman X-Men Franchise

So, we just have to thank Mrs. Jackman, Deborra-Lee Furness for restoring Hugh’s faith within himself. But this wasn’t the only time where we could have been stripped away from Jackman’s version of Logan. His best performances as Wolverine were certainly in his final X-verse appearances, and we could have been stripped away from that as well.

Hugh Jackman X-Men Franchise

X-Men: First Class Director Matthew Vaughn actually wanted Tom Hardy to play Wolverine. While promoting his Elton John biopic Rocketman, Vaughn revealed that the idea of Hardy playing a younger version of Wolverine in X-Men: Days of Future Past. He told ComingSoon:

Hugh Jackman X-Men Franchise

“When I finished the Days of Future Past script with it ready to go I looked at it and said, ‘I really think it would be fun to cast Tom Hardy or someone as the young Wolverine and then bring it all together at the end. Fox read Days of Future Past and went ‘Oh, this is too good! We’re doing it now!’ And I said, ‘Well what do you do next? Trust me you’ve got nowhere to go.’ Then they did Apocalypse and it’s like… If you flip that ’round even it would have been better. Hollywood doesn’t understand pacing. Their executives are driving 100 miles-per-hour looking in the rear-view mirror and not understanding why they crash.”

Hugh Jackman X-Men Franchise

Fox didn’t listen to the advice of the Director and that’s why he left. He continued:

“That’s one of the reasons I didn’t continue, because they didn’t listen to me. My plan was First Class, then second film was new young Wolverine in the 70’s to continue those characters, my version of the X-Men. So you’d really get to know all of them, and my finale was gonna be Days of Future Past. That was gonna be my number three where you bring them all… because what’s bigger than bringing in McKellen and Michael and Stewart and James and bringing them all together?”

Well, Tom Hardy does possess a great capability of playing Wolverine, but we’re happy that Jackman got to do give us his best in his final 3-4 appearances.

Vansh Mehra

Content creator. Just wanna share my passion for cinema with everyone.
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