Hugh Jackman is back as Wolverine in the highly anticipated Deadpool & Wolverine. Seven years after he seemingly put the claws away for good in James Mangold’s spectacular superhero Western Logan, Jackman is back for one last round as everyone’s favorite mutant. Promoted as the long-overdue goodbye to the Fox X-Men movies before the mutants, hopefully, enter the MCU, Deadpool & Wolverine promises to be one of 2024’s biggest movies.
As Jackman prepares to say goodbye to the role — again — the question arises: who will play Logan in the Marvel Cinematic Universe? I, like every other person on the planet, love Jackman in the role, even if he isn’t exactly comic-book-accurate. However, a new day brings new opportunities, and as it turns out, several actors would be good choices to play Wolverine from now on. Ideally, the actor needs to be under 40, since the role would likely come with a multiyear contract, and under 5-feet, 5-inches tall. However, much like Wolverine himself, we’re adaptable. So, without further ado, here are five actors who would be great choices to play the mutant in the MCU.
You probably know Josh Hutcherson as the sweet and, it must be said, useless Peeta Mellark in the Hunger Games tetralogy. The 31-year-old actor, who’s been working since the mid-2000s and has a résumé twice as long as most actors his age, has spent his post-Hunger Games career mostly away from high-profile pictures, instead preferring to play freaky little dudes in freaky little pictures.
Well, what do you know, Wolverine is a freaky little dude. Indeed, there is a distinctively fiendish quality to Wolverine that Hutcherson could capture perfectly. As a vital bonus, Hutcherson is a perfect height, making him ideal to play the notoriously short character, which is crucial to me, a fellow short person. Now, Hutcherson looks much younger than I’d like, but he would still be quite an inspired choice to play the savage mutant.
While most others would favor Daniel Radcliffe, I think his most famous role might be inescapable, at least when it comes to playing another major pop culture character. Luckily, no one cares about Peeta, so Hutcherson is free to take on the role that actually cements him as a modern icon.
If you’re one of the few people who actually bothered to watch Netflix’s Shadow and Bone, then you’re familiar with Calahan Skogman. The 31-year-old played Matthias Helvar in the short-lived fantasy series, instantly capturing hearts with his classic good looks and ability to portray the character’s tortured nature.
Skogman is the definition of a rising star; his résumé is short — it pretty much begins and ends with Shadow and Bone, plus a role in Kogonada’s upcoming film starring Margot Robbie and Colin Farrell. However, he wouldn’t be the first up-and-comer that Marvel turned into an overnight sensation. At a mighty 6-feet, 4-inches tall, Skogman is far taller than the character, but Jackman is 6-feet, 2-inches tall, so it’s clear height is not an issue here. Plus, look at the picture above and tell us Skogman doesn’t have the Wolverine look down to a tee. Like, that’s Wolverine right there.
Rising to prominence in the seminal British teen show Skins, Dev Patel became a household name in Hollywood thanks to his breakthrough role in Danny Boyle’s Oscar-winning drama Slumdog Millionaire. After years of consistent work, which includes an Oscar-nominated role in the 2016 biopic Lion, Patel has reinvented himself as a sober leading man with David Lowery’s exquisite medieval epic The Green Knight and an action hero with this year’s underappreciated Monkey Man.
Patel would be an unexpected, but much-appreciated choice for Wolverine. As one of Hollywood’s most respected young actors, Patel’s name isn’t strange to fan-casting — indeed, he’s been mentioned for everything, from Mister Fantastic to Batman. However, Wolverine might just be the right role for him. Monkey Man proved he has the necessary gruffness to play the brutal X-Man, and his highly regarded credentials would add considerable prestige to the project.
Every Canadian out there seems to be in agreement that Jared Keeso is the right choice to play the MCU’s Wolverine. Best known as the creator, writer, and star of the long-running sitcom Letterkenny, Keeso is currently starring in the show’s spinoff, Shoresy. Beyond these two series, Keeso’s film career includes roles in Neil Blomkamp’s Elysium and Xavier Dolan’s The Life and Death of John F. Donovan.
Letterkenny has pretty much been an eight-year audition for Wolverine. Indeed, Keeso’s Wayne shares multiple similarities with the mutant: he’s rough, gruff, strong, and incredibly intense, unafraid to get into a fight and punch his way through many, if not most, situations. A native Canadian, Keeso is 40, right at the edge of what I consider the limit to play a long-term Wolverine. However, he looks younger than his years, and if 55-year-old Jackman has proven anything, it’s that age really is just a number.
Anyone who saw Hulu’s sensation Shōgun probably came out thinking two things: one, Hiroyuki Sanada will probably win an Emmy for this show, and two, Cosmo Jarvis just got himself cast in either a Marvel or DC project, whichever calls first. The 34-year-old rose to prominence with a role in Florence Pugh’s wicked period drama Lady Macbeth before stealing hearts as the only good part in Netflix’s terrible adaptation of Persuasion.
After Shōgun‘s success, Jarvis should have his pick of roles, and he should set his sights on the MCU because he would be a spectacular Wolverine. He is the right age and has the look, the talent, and the experience, considering his role in Shōgun has more than a few similarities with Logan. Jarvis seems to be at the cusp of stardom, and a role in the MCU would more than guarantee it. He is as perfect a choice as it gets, and Marvel President Kevin Feige would be wise to call him as soon as possible.
China just gave Hollywood a cautionary tale about AI filmmaking. Sanxingdui: Future Past, billed as the country's first fully AI-generated movie, hit theaters on October 23 and bombed at the box office.
According to Futurism, the film's reported $1.5 million production budget landed on more than 10,000 screens. Yet it pulled in only about $181,000, averaging roughly $20 per screen, making the budget difficult to recover.
Some of the best shots in Grok Imagine’s AI-made Odyssey don’t contain actors. Ancient landscapes stretch into the distance. Close-ups of grimy hands suggest people who have touched something rougher than a keyboard. For a few seconds, the illusion holds.
https://twitter.com/imagine/status/2113712964419063911
YouTube videos could soon look better without eating quite so much data, right? Thankfully, the platform plans to introduce a new video format called AV2 on its web player in early 2027, promising more efficient streaming and potentially fewer playback hiccups on slower internet connections. The big headline is a roughly 30% improvement in compression efficiency over AV1, YouTube's existing video format. That doesn't guarantee every video will use 30% less data, but it could make streaming a little easier on both internet connections and data allowances.
What is AV2, and why should viewers care?