Mutant Cameos Are Crashing Wolverine

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By Rafe Telsch

One of the fun things about the X-Men movies is the number of supporting players the filmmakers managed to cram in. Without making all of them primary players, the movie manages to feature quite a few popular characters, making a fun Easter Egg hunt for fans of the comic book.

It looks like that tradition may be carried on with the X-Men Origins movies, or at least the one currently in production, Wolverine. In the past week, two separate mutants have been mentioned as having possible Wolverine appearances, making fans squeal with delight at the possibilities. The appearances were mentioned recently by leading man Hugh Jackman himself, who told USA Today his spin-off would go the route of the previous franchise films with cameos of familiar mutants.

The first reported cameo comes from Film School Rejects who report that one of the heaviest mutants will be putting in an appearance: The Blob. Apparently some test footage is being shot with a practical effect in place to make an 800-pound actor appear more like a 1200-pound character (the numbers seem a little high, to the point even the site is questioning the reliability of that information). The Blob is a massive character, which helps form the basis of his mutant power of being immovable and seriously resistant to attacks. There’s no telling how large a part the character would play in the movie (no pun intended), but the fact that they aren’t relying on CG makes me wonder if it’s not minimal, where they don’t have to worry about having the character in combat of any sort.

The more exciting news builds on a rumor we’d heard before, albeit as a potential stand-alone picture. The good news is that if this cameo happens, it could easily lead into the stand-alone film. AICN reports that the fast-talking mutant assassin Deadpool will be showing up to taunt Wolverine at some point, and the previously rumored casting for the part is still being talked about: Ryan Reynolds. The only reason I doubt this is that recently Reynolds has been talking to the press about his more serious turn as an actor (like in Definitely, Maybe) and that he’s not interested in doing something like The Flash in JLA anymore. Is it that he isn’t interested in that kind of part, or he just wasn’t interested in that specific vehicle?

Since both of these are rumored as cameos, I wouldn’t expect either character to appear for too long in the Wolverine movie, but I love that they’re carrying on the tradition that started with X-Men, that the world of the mutants is bigger than just what we see in the movies, and there are more stories to be told.