There was once a time when Hugh Jackman Wolverine cameos made a sort of sense. Bursting out of a cell in full Weapon X gear, massacring half a bunker, then vanishing, in 2016’s otherwise pretty forgettable X-Men: Apocalypse. Telling potential recruitment team Magneto and Professor X to, er, go fuck themselves while propping up a bar in 2011’s X-Men: First Class. Even popping up via archived footage from X-Men Origins: Wolverine in 2018’s Deadpool 2. These were cameos we could accept: quick, self-contained sideshows that understood the sacred rule that such things ought to be fun and brief. They also arrived at a time when Jackman didn’t yet carry the weight of 25 years of audience investment.
And hadn't just kicked his long term wife to the curb for a younger model.
Last week, in an appearance on the BBC’s Graham Norton Show, Jackman revealed that he has banned himself from saying no to future appearances as the surly mutant. “I am never saying ‘never’ ever again,” he said. “But I did mean it when I said ‘never’, until the day when I changed my mind. But I really did for quite a few years, I meant it.”
Because now he needs to pay the alimony?
Cameo Wolverine has been done to death, and the only reason for him to make an appearance in Marvel’s next major episode would be if he was somehow pivotal to its events.
Marvel are moving on, though.
There’s an argument that the more Marvel leans on Jackman for cheap dopamine hits, the less power he has left. Each new appearance devalues the last.
Ever diminishing returns is a Hollywood trope, isn't it?
