5 Reasons Wolverine 3 Will RULE With A Capital R (Rating!)

This week it's been revealed that Stephen Merchant will be taking a role with Hugh Jackman in the third Wolverine movie. That'll be called something like "The Wolverine 2", as it were, since the first "The Wolverine" was followed by a prequel featuring the origins of Wolverine – in one timeline, of course. Today we're going to give you a quick run-down of what we're guessing this final epic adventure for the most famous actor to ever take on Old Man Logan.

There's a rumor that this final Jackman film will feature a derivative of the Old Man Logan series of comics from 2008 (reborn in 2015). For an idea of what that would be like, we turn to the folks at Comicstorian who provide an amazingly concise look at the comic series for those of you that plan on purchasing the comics in the near future, but just haven't gotten around to it yet.

20th Century Fox own the X-Men, any mentions of Mutants, Wolverine, Cable, Deadpool, the Silver Surfer, and the Fantastic Four – as well as the mutant iterations of both Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver.

This does not need to be a cut-and-dry perfect page-for-page adaptation of the Old Man Logan story. Instead, we'd like to suggest, it could be a mix of that and what we've seen in the film X-Men: Days of Future Past.

According to X-Men Apocalypse's director Bryan Singer, Wolverine's appearance in "Apocalypse" will be complicated.

Speaking about Wolverine's appearance in the Apocalypse trailer you see above, he said, "Make of that what you want. I will say, it's not simple. There's something more pivotal that occurs with that. It hints to a sequence that again fits within the canon of all six movies, and the birth of a new direction. It's not insignificant, nor is it simply just a throw-in."

Will we be finding out "to whom the claws belong?" asked Empire Online – "It's not the only shot you're gonna see, let's put it that way," said Singer.

Multiple timelines!

Inevitability – and the idea that there are some things that the Wolverine just can't stop. The timeline was "fixed" in Days of Future Past, but Logan remembers what it was like. He knows what can happen in a future gone wrong.

No fate but what we make!

And yes, we're pretty sure that's Jackman's arm.

Or someone with equally-boney knuckles.

According to Deadline, Boyd Holbrook has been cast in this next Wolverine movie as a "relentless, calculating and intense head of security for a global enterprise who is set against Jackman's clawed Wolverine/Logan hero."

Imagine we delve into the alternate universe known in Marvel Comics lore as Earth-1191, aka Forever Yesterday, very similar to what we saw as a possible future for the X-Men in Days of Future Past.

House of M style. Death and destruction. A terrible future.

Imagine Wolverine has accidentally murdered the X-Men like he does in Old Man Logan (whoops!) and Bolivar Trask's Sentinels have succeeded in destroying the rest of the world's mutants – and Boyd Holbrook is (obviously) head of security for that global enterprise.

The lone X-Man to have survived Wolverine's accidental murder-festival is Professor X, who incidentally has been confirmed to be in this film, played by Patrick Stewart.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Richard E. Grant will also be a villain. They say he'll be "a villainous mad-scientist type."

Does Sony own the rights to everything Spiderman? Yes. Are they willing to be reasonable with dolling out the rights for the right price? Clearly they are.

The Spidey villain Mysterio plays a vital role in the Old Man Logan storyline – not one that mixes all that well with the idea that we've got Trask's sentinels returning directly, but still. Could it be that Grant will be Mysterio, just long enough to throw Logan into the alternate timeline called Dying Earth?

We certainly hope so.

And on back to Stephen Merchant. A very tall man. A man who less than a day ago posted the following to his Instagram account:

He's shaved his head and has included the text: "An actor prepares. #Wolverine3."

What could it mean?

Above we've got a hypothesis grid. Imagine that we don't live in a world where Marvel owns the rights to The Incredible Hulk and/or the Inhumans (including Black Bolt, who also plays a tiny yet significant role in Old Man Logan). Look like Merchant could fit either role?

We certainly hope he will.

Deadpool is the most box-office successful R-rated movie of all time. You think Fox is really going to pass on the opportunity to not only include Ryan Reynolds as a proper red-costumed anti-hero here, but on making the film R-rated as well?

Imagine Wolverine ACTUALLY KILLING PEOPLE!

BLOOD! GUTS!

HORRIFYING MASSACRES OF STOMACH-CHURNING PROPORTIONS!

What a way for Jackman to go out!