Hugh Jackman Reveals His Favorite Superhero Film, And It’s Not Marvel
Hugh Jackman admits his favorite superhero film is the 2008 DC Comics hit The Dark Knight.
Hugh Jackman’s favorite superhero film is not from Marvel Studios, but it’s pretty hard to argue with his choice. In a new video interview with Variety, Jackman admits the DC Comics film The Dark Knight ranks at the top of his list. The Christopher Nolan film, highlighted by an Oscar-winning performance by the late Heath Ledger as The Joker, is largely at the top of the list for most comic book movie fans, so you can’t truly blame him.
Jackman is pretty matter-of-fact about his choice, and doesn’t seem to feel the need to throw Marvel a bone, despite playing one of its cornerstone characters in Wolverine for over 20 years. To add insult to the MCU’s injury, he also said that when he was a kid, his favorite superhero movie was another DC Comics film: the first Christopher Reeve Superman film, directed by Richard Donner, which he called a “gamechanger.” Hugh Jackman was born in 1968, which would have made him 10 years old when Superman hit theaters, the perfect age to see the film.
The admission comes as Hugh Jackman is due to unsheathe his adamantium claws once more for Deadpool 3, due in theaters on November 8, 2024. He had previously announced he was done playing the character after 2017’s Logan gave him a gritty yet emotional sendoff, but his friend (and sometimes rival) Ryan Reynolds convinced him to play the character once more, officially bringing him into the Marvel Cinematic Universe for at least one film.
As Reynolds’ social media videos have proven, he and Jackman have great chemistry, and that is something the Australian actor wanted to explore. In a recent interview, he said the 1980s buddy-cop flick 48 Hours, starring Eddie Murphy and Nick Nolte, inspired him to explore doing a film with that kind of energy with Reynolds.
“I went to a screening of Deadpool. I was 20 minutes in, and I was like, ‘Ah, damn it!’,” the actor said. “All I kept seeing in my head was 48 Hours with Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy. So it’s been brewing for a long time.”
After first playing Wolverine/Logan in Bryan Singer’s 2000 smash X-Men, Hugh Jackman has become an A-list superstar, and even earned a 2013 Oscar nomination for Best Actor for his performance as Jean Valjean in Les Misérables. He says he is still hounded, however, by fans who want him to reprise his role as Logan, and this film may finally satiate that fan craving.
Among his other revelations in the interview: Hugh Jackman says The Wizard of Oz was the first film he ever saw, and the flying monkeys traumatized him; Salem’s Lot (1979) was the scariest movie he ever saw, and he once gave Matt Damon a lap dance. We’ll just leave that there, without any context.
Hugh Jackman’s latest film, The Son, was a film he eagerly wanted to be in; as a fan of director Florian Zeller (it’s based on his play), Jackman contacted him directly after learning that he was working on a film adaptation. Zeller cast him in the lead of a father with a newborn having to balance his relationship with his ex-wife and their troubled teenage son. The film also stars Vanessa Kirby, Anthony Hopkins, and Laura Dern.
