Despite featuring so many familiarMarvelmovie faces, Liev Schreiber did not reprise his Sabretooth role inDeadpool & Wolverine- and, to be honest, I’m glad.Deadpool & Wolverinehas becomethe MCU’s latest billion-dollar movieand the highest-grossing R-rated movie of all time. The number ofcameos inDeadpool & Wolverineis partly to thank for this success, as it expertly capitalized on the nostalgia of its older audience, bringing back a litany of Marvel movie heroes and villains that made their debuts in the 2000s.
These mostly includedcharacters from the first X-Men trilogy, though only a handful were portrayed by their original actors.Tyler Mane’s Sabretoothwas among them, a character whose rivalry with Wolverine in Marvel Comics runs far deeper than what was depicted in 2000’sX-Men. Despite its faults,X-Men Origins: Wolverinedid a better job of exploring the relationship between Wolverine and Sabretooth, with a younger version of the latter portrayed by Liev Schreiber. Yet despite play a much more fleshed-out Sabretooth, Schreiber doesn’t feature inDeadpool & Wolverine- and I think that’s a good thing.
Deadpool & Wolverine’s Sabretooth Fight Was Anticlimactic (Even If That Was The Point)
Tyler Mane’s Appearance Lasted Seconds
Sabretooth is one of the first cameos to appear inDeadpool & Wolverine, arriving moments after the titular duo duke it out for the first time. He appears alongside a litany of other villains from Fox’s X-Men franchise, including Pyro and Toad, as they surround the two with the intent of bringing them back to Cassandra Nova’s compound. It is here that Wolverine and Sabretooth square off, with Deadpool stating,“People have been waiting decades for this fight.“The “fight” then ensues with the two running at each other, only for Wolverine to swiftly decapitate Sabretooth.
Liev Schreiber and Tyler Mane technically portray the same variant of Sabretooth, with Mane’s depiction being further along in his bestial transformation.
The scene was one of a few subversions of expectations, as the fight that Deadpool suggests was decades in the making was over in one fell swoop. It helped convey thebrutality of this Wolverine variant, whose approach to combat is more unbridled than that of the original X-Men universe’s Logan. At the same time,it was undeniably anticlimactic, significantly diminishing the strength of Tyler Mane’s Sabretooth by comparison- which is why I’m happy it wasn’t Liev Schreiber instead.
Liev Schreiber’s Sabretooth Deserves A Better Return Than Deadpool & Wolverine
Liev Schreiber Delivered A Fleshed-Out Sabretooth
Schrieber’s Sabretooth was one ofX-Men Origins: Wolverine’s best featuresdespite the movie being largely lambasted overall. While Fox’s decision to make Sabretooth Wolverine’s half-brother was a little out of left field,the movie did a fine job of fleshing out their relationship and deepening their ties afterX-Men. After sharing much of the limelight with his on-screen half-brother, Schreiber portrayed a far more developed version of the character whose rivalry extended far beyond the few brutish fight scenes involving Tyler Mane.
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Tyler Mane
Having Schreiber reprise this role for a few seconds totalwould therefore have been an egregious disservice to his character. Sabretooth’s lack of involvement in the X-Men franchise afterX-Men Origins: Wolverinemeant that the relationship between the two brothers would remain frustratingly unresolved.Deadpool & Wolverinemight have been the perfect place to do this, especially as members of the resistance were afforded their own heroic endings, but it was ultimately something that Schreiber wasn’t keen to explore anyway.
Why Liev Schreiber Didn’t Return For Deadpool & Wolverine
Schreiber Wasn’t Keen On Meeting The Physical Demands
Liev Schreiber recently spoke toColliderabout his absence inDeadpool & Wolverine,despite the bond established inX-Men: Origins: Wolverine. As fans started to campaign for his return as one of the many cameos in the movie, Schreiber was touched by their support but resolved that he was happy to sit it out nonetheless, stating:
To be honest, it’s a lot of work getting your body up to that point. I know I watched Hugh [Jackman] get himself ready again, and I thought, ‘I’m okay to sit by the sidelines.’
His reaction is understandable, given the immense amount of work Hugh Jackman put into getting back into shape, with his efforts being flaunted inDeadpool & Wolverine’s climactic final sequencewith a tongue-in-cheek shirtless scene.
I would hope that Schreiber would have been afforded a much larger role than Mane.
While it is unlikely that Schreiber would also have been expected to appear shirtless at any point,the physical demands of embodying most comic book movie characters are still significant. Should his Sabretooth have appeared inDeadpool & Wolverine, then I would hope that Schreiber would have been afforded a much larger role than Mane, which would have doubtlessly included a longer fight scene, or more fight scenes overall. Still, Schreiber and Wolverine might share a scene after all down the line now that Hugh Jackman’s character is established in the MCU and the multiverse still thrives.
Deadpool & Wolverine
Cast
A follow-up to the highly successful Deadpool and Deadpool 2 films starring Ryan Reynolds as the Merc with a Mouth. The third film will be the first in the franchise to be developed under the Marvel Studios banner following Disney’s acquisition of 20th Century Fox.
