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Hugh Jackman has split two pairs of pants since he started bulking up for Wolverine return
Not the greatest news for the costume department on The Music Man.
Last month, fans received word that Hugh Jackman would once again don the mutton chops, Adamantium claws, and surly attitude of Wolverine in the third Deadpool movie. It was great news for Marvel fans all over the world, but not such great news for the costume department of Broadway's current production of The Music Man, in which Jackman plays the leading role of musical charlatan, Harold Hill.
With the show set to close out its lucrative run in early 2023, Jackman has begun bulking up for his return as the crankiest member of the X-Men.
"Apologies to the entire cast of The Music Man, and in particular my dresser and my wife — all the protein shakes are starting to kick in fast,” he stated during a recent interview with Variety. "The other night, I could hear the Velcro go creaking and actually popped open. I’ve split two pairs of pants." One of these fabric fissures was 18-inches wide, prompting a backstage scramble to replace the trousers in question. “I had about two minutes," Jackman recalled. "I said to the stage manager, ‘New pair of pants!’ I had my pants around my ankles. I thought, if my dresser doesn’t get here in time, it’s better to go on in split pants than no pants. Then I saw him running from stage right to stage left, top speed. We made it just in time."
Scheduled for a wide theatrical bow in late 2024, Deadpool 3 will serve as Wade Wilson's grand entrance into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Ryan Reynolds returns to play the self-aware Merc with a Mouth, while Shawn Levy (who worked with Reynolds and Jackman in the past on blockbuster titles like Free Guy and Real Steel) occupies the director's chair.
The idea of pairing up these iconic mutants has been an ongoing discussion between Reynolds and Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige ever since Disney obtained the screen rights to the X-Men following its purchase of 20th Century Fox all the way back in 2019. “I got Kevin to talk what, if anything, the future holds for Deadpool in that transaction,” Reynolds explained to Variety. “The subject was coming up in the meeting about if we could find a way to do a Deadpool-Wolverine pairing. It wasn’t possible then. For this to be happening now is pretty damn exciting.”
For three years, Reynolds pestered Jackman "on the daily," begging him to consider coming back. Jackman wasn't all that interested, owing to the fact that he definitively wrapped up the character's story in 2017's Logan (the R-rated swan song helmed by James Mangold nabbed critical and audience acclaim, as well as an Oscar nod for Best Adapted Screenplay).
He ultimately relented after taking in a screening of Deadpool and envisioning a rich buddy cop dynamic between James Howlett and Wade Wilson. "I was 20 minutes in, and I was like, ‘Ah, damn it!’” Jackman admitted. “All I kept seeing in my head was 48 Hrs. with Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy. So it’s been brewing for a long time. It just took me longer to get here.”
His momentous decision also came down to a close kinship with Wolverine that has only grown with the passage of time. “A little part of me now thinks I’d be better at it,” Jackman continued. “Is that arrogance of age or something? Wolverine’s a tortured character — more tortured than me. But I always get the feeling of him being comfortable in his own skin. And I feel more comfortable in my own skin now, even though it’s messier."
Deadpool 3 is slated to arrive on the big screen Nov. 8, 2024 — a little over two months after its original release date.
Looking for more sci-fi content? Check out shows like Resident Alien, Brave New World, Project Blue Book, Eureka, Heroes, Intergalactic, and more streaming now on Peacock.
