Logan director James Mangold says he had ideas for a Deadpool and Wolverine team-up

Hugh Jackman as Wolverine in Logan
(Image credit: 20th Century Fox)

Logan director James Mangold has shared ideas he had for a Wolverine and Deadpool team-up, before Deadpool 3 was revealed to be putting the characters together. 

"I've made a bunch of movies with Hugh Jackman now,” Mangold told Insider. "We're good friends and we talked a lot. And one of the things we talked about a lot, even while we were making Logan, was the idea of how joyful a kind of Midnight Run or 48 Hrs. with Deadpool and Logan would be. So, I completely understand those guys chasing that idea."

Midnight Run and 48 Hrs. are both buddy action comedy movies that feature a lawman and a criminal – so it's easy to imagine the direction Mangold's take on the duo would have taken, had those ideas ever become reality. 

Logan very much seemed to be the end of the road for Jackman's Wolverine, but he'll be reprising his iconic role in Deadpool 3, opposite Ryan Reynolds's Merc with a Mouth. 

"I can't say that there's a part of me that doesn't wish that we'd let it be," Mangold said recently of Logan's return. "But there was always going to be another Wolverine. There could be a baby Wolverine and a cartoon Wolverine. As much liquid as they can squeeze out of that rag, they're going to try to. I don’t measure my success on a movie like Logan with whether we ended the conversation. I ended my conversation."

Mangold's next project, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, arrives in UK cinemas this June 28 and US theaters this June 30. In the meantime, check out our guide to all the upcoming major movie release dates for everything else 2023 has in store. 

Molly Edwards
Entertainment Writer

I'm an Entertainment Writer here at GamesRadar+, covering all things film and TV for the site's Total Film and SFX sections. I previously worked on the Disney magazines team at Immediate Media, and also wrote on the CBeebies, MEGA!, and Star Wars Galaxy titles after graduating with a BA in English.