Logan director wishes Marvel wasn't bringing Wolverine back, but sees it as inevitable

Hugh Jackman as Wolverine in X-Men: The Last Stand
(Image credit: 20th Century Fox)

Logan seemed like a pretty definitive end to the story of Hugh Jackman's Wolverine when it was released back in 2017, but the character is set to return in Deadpool 3 – and James Mangold, who helmed Jackman's supposed swansong, isn't so keen on the idea.

"I can’t say that there’s a part of me that doesn’t wish that we’d let it be," Mangold said in a recent interview with Variety. "But there was always going to be another Wolverine. There could be a baby Wolverine and a cartoon Wolverine. As much liquid as they can squeeze out of that rag, they’re going to try to. I don’t measure my success on a movie like Logan with whether we ended the conversation. I ended my conversation."

As for how, exactly, Wolverine will return remains to be seen, but the Merc with a Mouth himself, Ryan Reynolds, has promised something different from previous iterations. "What we pitched [Jackman] was enough of a divergence from the character that he knows and the character that he’s left behind, that it gives him something completely new to play and something that he’s really excited to do," the actor told ET Canada earlier this year.

As for Mangold, his next stint in the director's chair is for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, which sees Harrison Ford back for another round as the titular archeologist, accompanied by Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Mads Mikkelsen, and Toby Jones.  

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny hits the big screen on June 28 in the UK and June 30 in the US. In the meantime, check out our guide to the other best upcoming movies on the way in 2023 and beyond.

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I’m an Entertainment Writer here at GamesRadar+, covering everything film and TV-related across the Total Film and SFX sections. I help bring you all the latest news and also the occasional feature too. I’ve previously written for publications like HuffPost and i-D after getting my NCTJ Diploma in Multimedia Journalism.