Wolverine 3 won’t just be the swan song for Hugh Jackman’s take on Wolverine — apparently it will be the last time his co-star Patrick Stewart takes on the Xavier mantle, too.
Speaking to British reporters earlier today about the film, due out next year, Patrick Stewart noted that it will likely be the last time he plays Professor X on the big screen:
I would imagine this is probably the end of this franchise for me. But the thing about science fiction and fantasy is that you can never, ever say it’s the end, it’s over.
Stewart has played Professor X on and off since the very first X-Men movie in 2000, so it’s been a decade and a half of sitting in a wheel chair and pretending to move stuff with his mind. Even with James McAvoy stepping in as the younger Charles, it’s gotten to the point that it’s hard to separate Xavier from Stewart’s portrayal. He was perfect casting then, and has been so for the past 16 years.
Like Stewart says, there’s always a way to come back in sci-fi. In fact, he’s already defied death in the X-Men films once already, so it’s not like there’s no precedent. But regardless of how it turns out, it will be sad to see two of the most iconic portrayals of comic book characters in this influential era of superhero movies bow out in Wolverine 3.
Superhero movies aren’t ending, far from it, but this is a little bit of an end of an era for them if it really is the last time we see Stewart and Jackman as these characters.
[ITV]