Wolverine: Taron Egerton on Marvel Talks Taking Over for Hugh Jackman

Ever since Hugh Jackman officially retired from the role of Wolverine in 2017’s Logan, the rumor mill never really stopped spinning about the character’s future. From his playful teases with X-Men Origins: Wolverine co-star Ryan Reynolds enjoying a career resurgence since Deadpool’s 2016 reboot to Jackman’s Logan and X-Men franchise co-star Patrick Stewart reprising his role in 2022’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, hope still remains the Australian actor would don the claws at least one more time for the MCU. While promoting his AppleTV+ series Black Bird, star Taron Egerton threw his hat into the running, talking to the New York Times (via Deadline) about the possibility, even to the point of sharing information about his discussion with Marvel executives.

“I don’t think it would be wrong to say that. I’d be excited, but I’d be apprehensive as well because Hugh is so associated with the role that I’d wonder if it’d be very difficult for someone else to do it,” the Rocketman star said. “But hopefully, if it does come around, they’ll give me a shot.” If anyone can put in a good word about the actor’s prowess and credentials, it would be Matthew Vaughn, who directed Egerton in his breakout role in the first two Kingsman films for 20th Century Studios. The 2014 film The Secret Service and the 2017 sequel The Golden Circle paired Egerton’s Gary ‘Eggsy’ Unwin with Colin Firth’s far more experienced Harry Hart as autonomous order of British secret agents known as the Kingsmen, and their codenames are based on the Arthurian legend.

The 2021 prequel The King’s Man was set in World War I, with neither actor appearing given the setting. Vaughn directs the soft reboot of the X-Men franchise in 2011’s First Class, which features the younger counterparts of Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) and Erik Lensherr, aka Magneto (Michael Fassbender). Jackman had a cameo telling the two to “go fuck themselves” when both tried to recruit Wolverine for their Cuban Missile Crisis mission.