Credit: Inside the MagicBen Affleck’s Daredevil now has another official live-action sequel.
The original era of Marvel superhero movies seems like a thing of the past now that the long-established Marvel Cinematic Universe has given us newer versions of certain characters and their respective franchises, such as Spider-Man, The Incredible Hulk, and Daredevil, replacing the ones we saw in films before Iron Man (2008), the first MCU movie, showed up.
However, the introduction of the “Multiverse” has allowed most of those pre-MCU era franchises to continue in some shape or form.
Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021) reunited us with the Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield versions of the wall-crawler, while also serving as a sequel of sorts to their respective sagas, Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy and The Amazing Spider-Man movies.
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Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022) continued with the exploration of the Multiverse, including Dr. Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic (John Krasinski), who had been previously played by Ioan Gruffudd in 2005’s Fantastic Four and its 2007 sequel, and by Miles Teller in the 2015 reboot, and a “Multiversal variant” of Patrick Stewart’s sage mutant Professor Charles Xavier from Fox’s many X-Men movies.
Last year’s The Marvels (2023) also featured Kelsey Grammar’s Henry McCoy/Beast in its post-credits scene.
Now, the latest Multiverse-traversing theatrical outing, Deadpool & Wolverine (2024), which marks Wade Wilson/Deadpool’s (Ryan Reynolds) official MCU debut, sees the return of several characters — not just from X-Men, but from many other non-MCU Marvel franchises.
Warning: There are spoilers ahead regarding Deadpool & Wolverine‘s cameos.
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While we get to see Tyler Mane‘s Sabretooth from X-Men (2000), Dafne Keen’s Laura/X-23 from Logan (2017), Aaron Stanford’s Pyro from X-Men, X2 (2003), and X-Men: The Last Stand (2006), and, of course, Hugh Jackman’s Logan/Wolverine (which is his tenth appearance as the character), we also see non-X-men such as Wesley Snipes’ Blade from the Blade trilogy and Chris Evans’ Johnny Storm from the original two Fantastic Four movies.
However, Deadpool & Wolverine also sees the return of another surprising character many fans might have forgotten about.
Jennifer Garner reprises her role as Elektra Natchios in the movie, appearing as part of a team of abandoned heroes that includes Blade (Wesley Snipes), X-23 (Dafne Keen), and a “wink-wink” cameo from the mutant Gambit played by Channing Tatum, who was teased to be taking on the character in a solo movie for years during the height of the X-Men movies.
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This marks Jennifer Garner’s third appearance as the character Elektra, having first played her in Daredevil (2003) opposite Ben Affleck’s Matt Murdock, and in the spinoff/sequel/solo movie Elektra (2005). Since the 2003 film, Daredevil has been rebooted within the Marvel Cinematic Universe with the Netflix show Daredevil (2015 — 2018), starring Charlie Cox in the titular role and Élodie Yung replacing Jennifer Garner.
Despite being widely panned, 2003’s Daredevil was a box office hit, grossing $179.2M against its $78M budget. But Elektra bombed, grossing just $57M over an estimated budget of $45–65M. Still, there’s clearly a lot of adoration for characters and the actors who play them from superhero movies of the pre-MCU era, regardless of how well their films might have performed at the box office.
But this clearly has a lot to do with the novelty of Multiverse cameos. Nobody liked The Amazing Spider-Man movies when they came out in theaters, and there wasn’t much buzz about their leading star at the time, either, but now, Andrew Garfield is a celebrated Peter Parker/Spider-Man actor (and rightly so).
While it’s unlikely we’ll see any of the actors/characters who made cameo appearances in Deadpool & Wolverine return again, if the Multiverse has taught us anything, never say never. Besides, wasn’t Logan (2017) supposed to be Hugh Jackman’s final farewell?
Between Deadpool & Wolverine, and the fact that the San Diego Comic-Con (SDCC) has just unveiled Tony Stark/Iron Man legend Robert Downey Jr. as the new Doctor Doom in the upcoming Fantastic Four reboot, clearly, the MCU has no intention of leaving the Multiverse in its rear-view. Can the doors to the Multiverse even be closed again?
Are you happy to see the Multiverse continue in the MCU? Let Inside the Magic know in the comments down below!