Wolverine 3 has been a bit of mystery, some things that both Simon Kinberg and Hugh Jackman somewhat confirm that elements of Old Man Logan will be used in the film. Kinberg calling the film more of a “western” and again confirming it’s R-rating material, the assumption being this will indeed lead to complete overhaul of that story and might not even look the same.
However, due to the rights issue between Marvel Studios and Fox, they’d have to switch-up a lot things about that direction and the characters in it. One major switch-up just might be the villain of the Wolverine 3, which might have been revealed in an end credits scene in X-Men: Apocalypse.
Be warned, this will spoil that scene for you if you scroll down.
Last chance..
Bleeding Cool says the scene in question involves a clean-up crew after Wolverine butchering everyone at the Weapon X facility, with a briefcase of mutant blood being collected by Essex Corp.
The second related to the end credits for X-Men Apocalypse. We see a besuited man walking through the remains of the Weapon X clean-up programme, removing the blood, bodies and bullets. And retrieving vials of Wolverine’s blood labelled Weapon X. And placing them into his briefcase which contains other vials of differing colours. Slamming shut, it is labelled ESSEX CORP.
The nod is directly to Dr. Nathaniel Essex aka Mister Sinister, a human geneticist from Victorian England turned mutant and rival of Apocalypse (also turned Essex into a mutant).
His hobbies include cloning mutants and was behind the cloning of Jean Grey to fooling Scott Summers to have a baby with the clone, which turns out to be Cable. We’re expected to see the debut of Cable in Deadpool 2, so it’s unknown if that original connection to Sinister will play-out in the film.
It’s unlikely the scene itself is setting-up things like X-Force or even Gambit, as Wolverine is directly involved and we’ve already caught-wind of clones, along with British actor Richard E. Grant reportedly playing a “mad scientist”. Wolverine 3 is the next film in the release lineup making a lot more sense having it connected to X-Men: Apocalypse like this, giving more purpose to that Weapon X sequence.
Grant taking the role of Sinister or at the very least playing one of his scientists (Dr. Cornelius?) wouldn’t be hard to picture. Although, we’ve had the likes of Bryan Cranston campaigning for the part in the past.
If X-23 aka Laura Kinney is indeed in Wolverine 3 as rumored to be, it wouldn’t be hard to have her linked to Sinister along with the other members of X-Force, such as Cable and Domino. Setting-up a major villain for future films, giving Wolverine his last bloody battle and passing the torch to a new Wolverine is an excellent send-off to Hugh Jackman.
Bryan Singer recently admitted to pitching X-23 as a replacement for Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine, and would likely need to be tied to a Wolverine film before linking-up with X-Force.
Depending on when Sinister clones Laura, she could be anywhere between her early 30’s or late teens.
However, there’s been no word concerning her casting so far.
Boyd Holbrook is said to be head of security of global corporation, which could easily be Essex Corp. and might be one of Sinister’s many minions. Some include the various members of the Nasty Boys, which would make for killable adversaries for things like X-Force and Deadpool 2.
Essex Corp. could take the place of the less menacing Blackguard, and could in-fact be behind the cloning of X-23 and even the development of a assassin unit like Strikeforce X, capable of taking down even someone as powerful as Wolverine.
Sinister is Fox’s last big bad of the Earthbound X-Men villains and could be an easy one to have across multiple films, not unlike Magneto. Leading to the Mutant Massacre of the Morlocks, the Legacy Virus and even the Phalanx Covenant invasion.
Omega Red has been teased since X2 via Stryker’s files and was even hinted to in The Wolverine via the tentacle robots that hindered Logan’s abilities. I really hope Boyd is playing a version of him or we’ll at least see him in the film. Red is a hired-gun and could easily be a bodyguard or assassin for Sinister.
We’ll have to wait and see if any of this comes to together, but for the moment it all seems to fit for whatever James Mangold is planning for Wolverine 3.
Wolverine 3 is currently shooting and will be released on March 3rd, 2017.