Kevin Feige is revealing if he thinks Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Evans could come back to the MCU as Iron Man and Captain America, respectively, following Hugh Jackman’s return as Wolverine for Deadpool & Wolverine.
Thanks to the multiverse, which can have different iterations of the same characters, the Marvel Studios boss confirmed “it can be done” as long as “great care is taken” with the superheroes and their storylines.
“That’s the key, right? How do you do it in a way that maintains what has come before, and in a great way?” Feige recently told DiscussingFilm. “And we’ve been spending, you know, the last two-plus years figuring that out for Wolverine. So, what’s to come? We’ll see. We’re just proud that we, I think, have figured it out for Wolverine. I think Hugh’s appearance and starring role in [Deadpool & Wolverine] is a great sign that it can be done — if great care is taken.”
Downey and Evans both left the Marvel Cinematic Universe in 2019’s Avengers: Endgame, which also saw the notable death of Downey’s Iron Man/Tony Stark. Jackman’s Logan/Wolverine also made a heartbreaking sacrifice at the end of 2017’s Logan, however, the Les Misérables actor was able to find a way to reprise his character in the upcoming Shawn Levy-directed movie without damaging the legacy of that film.
Feige previously told Empire magazine in May that he actually warned Jackman against reprising the beloved character again. “I said, ‘Let me give you a piece of advice, Hugh. Don’t come back’,” he recalled. “‘You had the greatest ending in history with Logan. That’s not something we should undo.’”
The actor eventually convinced Feige that it would be worth it since he would be playing a version of Wolverine that’s different from his previous portrayals in the X-Men movies.
Jackman also told Empire at the time that he was excited about the R-rated Disney superhero film because he gets to show “different sides of Wolverine we haven’t seen before in the movies.”
Deadpool & Wolverine, also starring Ryan Reynolds, is set to hit theaters July 26.