Every once in a while, a female-driven film is so successful that it wakes studios up a little more to the reality that women actually watch movies. Bridesmaids paved the way for more raunchy female comedies; The Hunger Games and Twilight gave us a slew of YA copycats (and the subsequently more interesting careers of Jennifer Lawrence and Kristen Stewart); and now Wonder Woman is inspiring studios to place more emphasis on their female superheroes. One of those heroes could be X-23, aka Laura, Hugh Jackman’s young mutant sidekick in Logan.
Logan is understandably geared toward saying goodbye to Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine moreso than Patrick Stewart’s Charles Xavier, but there’s a certain finality to this chapter of the X-Men universe regardless. Stewart in particular is open to the idea of returning for a Deadpool sequel, but perhaps more pressingly, now says he’d be willing to drop by FX’s Legion.
With Hugh Jackman’s Logan opening in theaters this weekend, the top spot of this list was never in doubt. The questions were always whether audiences would respond well to the first major R-rated superhero movie. Was the big opening of Deadpool an abberation or a sign of things to come? If today’s numbers are any indication, the answer is, maybe a little bit of both.
When Logan finally fades to black, it brings Hugh Jackman’s 17-year run as Wolverine to a close. It is an emphatic and definitive ending, not just to Jackman’s Wolverine series, but also to the X-Men franchise as a whole.
It’s been nearly 17 years since Bryan Singer’s X-Men movie ushered in a new era of superhero movies, and in that time, we’ve seen studios crank through actors with alarming frequency. We’ve seen three Spider-Man, a handful of Batmen, three Punishers across the big and small screens, and dozens of big-budget Marvel and DC movies break records at the box office. In the midst of all this chaos has been Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine, the one actor-character combination that seemed immune to bad reviews and flagging box office numbers. And with Jackman set to take one final turn as Wolverine in Logan, the actor is taking a little time to stop and reflect on his impact in Hollywood.