If your life has devolved into one awkward Zoom call after another during the pandemic, a recent prank Ryan Reynolds pulled on Hugh Jackman and a handful of other O.G. X-Men stars will really resonate.
This past Saturday, Global Citizen, which bills itself as the "world's largest" initiative dedicated to eradicating global poverty, held an online benefit concert. As part of the show, it put on a virtual celebration of the 20th anniversary of the original X-Men movie by pulling together stars Hugh Jackman, Famke Janssen, Halle Barre, Sir Patrick Stewart and Sir Ian McKellen. Quite a lineup!
All was going well, until Ryan Reynolds decided to reignite his "feud" with Jackman by crashing the whole thing. Suddenly, things got real awkward, and the chummy group of stars began dropping out one-by-one like flies.
For the uninitiated, Reynolds is part of the X-Men universe – he was in X-Men Origins: Wolverine with Jackman back in 2009 as the character Deadpool, and went on to reprise the character in two of his own Marvel movies, with a third one announced for the future.
But those are not the movies that were holding a reunion, of course. So what was Reynolds doing there exactly? Along with stars of two other X-Men movies he brought along with him, Sophie Turner, James McAvoy and...Liev Schreiber? Well it seems Reynolds and Jackman have been embroiled in a years-long social media "feud" since they worked together back in 2009.
It all began with some playful on-set ribbing, but over the ensuing 11 years, it has escalated to Jackman and Reynolds hijacking each other's birthdays, anniversaries and other such milestones with some kind of jokey social media hijinks, any chance they get. Now, they can add online movie reunions to the list. Score one for Reynolds!
Online, fans of the two were delighted by this new chapter in Reynolds v. Jackman.
Reynolds may have won this round, but however Jackman decides to retaliate is sure to be epic!