Actor Viggo Mortensen almost portrayed Wolverine in Fox's X-Men franchise but decided against accepting the role that would ultimately go to Hugh Jackman.
Mortensen shared that he brought his son Henry to meet director Bryan Singer during X-Men's casting stage. Henry read the film's script and said, "This is wrong." His son said as much to Singer and told him that Wolverine's look and costume weren't right, leading the director, as Mortensen told the Happy Sad Confused podcast, to "fall all over himself."
The Lord of the Rings actor said, "The thing that bothered me at the time was just the commitment of endless movies of that same character over and over." He added, "I was nervous about that. And also there were some things... I mean they straightened most of them out, but I did take Henry to the meeting I had with the director as my sort of good luck charm and guide. In the back of my mind, I was thinking he could learn something, too, because I did let Henry read the script and he goes 'This is wrong, that's not how it is.'"
Additionally, Singer asked Mortensen's son if he was familiar with Wolverine, to which he replied, "Yeah, but he doesn't look like this." The actor added, "And all of a sudden the director is falling all over himself and then the rest of the meeting was him explaining in detail to Henry why he was taking certain liberties." His son asked if Singer would make the needed changes to Wolverine and he said, "I don't think so."
Ultimately, Mortensen turned down the role as he wasn't sure about "doing this for years," referring to starring as Wolverine for the entirety of Fox's franchise. Jackman took up the mantle of Wolverine, portraying him in 10 films. Actor Ryan Reynolds confirmed that prior to Disney acquiring Fox, Wolverine was slated to star in Deadpool 3, which would have seen Logan and Wade Wilson on an epic road-trip adventure.
In March 2019, Disney acquired 21st Century Fox, which ultimately led Fox to no longer hold the rights to Marvel Comics' X-Men characters. The last film of Fox's X-Men franchise was 2020's The New Mutants, which was inspired by the "Demon Bear" arc from writer Chris Claremont and artist Bill Sienkiewicz. The New Mutants was postponed for several years, partly due to negotiations between 21st Century Fox and Disney.
Source: Happy Sad Confused podcast via MovieWeb