Comics creator Rob Liefeld has never shied away from sharing his thoughts no matter how controversial or admittedly wrong they might be, and he’s staying true to form when it comes to Marvel recasting Wolverine.
In a new interview with Inverse, the Deadpool creator was asked for his thoughts on who should play the iconic clawed mutant when the X-Men are eventually rebooted for their MCU debut. Turns out Liefeld thinks there’s only one person who should portray Wolverine on the big screen, and it’s… Hugh Jackman. To qualify his remarks and reinforce how seriously he cares about the character being done right, Liefeld revealed that he’s so obsessed with Wolverine that it’s the only reason he even created Deadpool in the first place.
“I was only doing Deadpool to get to Wolverine. Like, Wolverine was always the goal. You understand Deadpool. He comes from the Weapon X program. He has a healing factor. He shares a history with Wolverine. Did I not just kind of put the blueprint down and lift it and go, ‘hello,’ and the whole time Marvel’s like, ‘Yeah, Rob, whatever you want. That’s good. Thumbs-up,’ and I’m like, ‘I can’t believe I’m getting to do this.’ So I can’t answer your question about Wolverine. I’m stuck on Hugh Jackman. I hope to god he comes back. I do. You know what He’s been seriously firm that he is not going to be Wolverine, right And I foolishly don’t believe him.”
Of course, as Liefeld notes, Jackman has made it repeatedly clear that he’s not returning to the mutant role that rocketed him to superstar fame. While promoting his new movie Bad Education in April, Jackman told The Daily Beast that the party is officially over as far as he and Wolverine are concerned.
“Somebody else will pick it up and run with it,” Jackman said. “It’s too good of a character not to. It’s kind of like, you’re on your way home and your friend rings you and goes, Oh, dude, a new DJ just came on and the music is awesome, are you going to come back And you say, Sounds good but… no. They’re fine with someone else.”