Fanboys and girls have a reason to smile — or more likely, squee — this Monday morning (July 10), as the first Deadpool 3 picture has emerged of Ryan Reynolds in costume as Deadpool and Hugh Jackman as Wolverine.

The shot comes courtesy of Reynolds himself, who chose a disappearing Instagram Story to mark the occasion, saying appropriately, “Don’t blink.”

The onscreen reunion of the two real life friends and fake frenemies is one of the most anticipated parts of the film. Adding to the excitement is the fact that Jackman is, for the first time, wearing a comics-appropriate yellow X-Men suit as the adamantium-clawed character.

The Tony winner has played the character nine times onscreen, but never wearing the suit, even when he was spliced into an after-credits scene with Reynolds’ character in Deadpool 2, culled from a sequence from 2009’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Jackman starred in that film with Reynolds, who played a sub-par version of “The Merc with a Mouth.”

The portrayal was so bad that the DP2 end credits had Reynolds’ hero traveling back in time into Origins to murder his badly-adapted version. “Just cleaning up the timeline,” he tells Jackman’s character after Deadpool identified himself as a “big fan.”

As recently reported, Reynolds tapped Jennifer Garner to return as the mysterious assassin Elektra from both 2000’s Daredevil and her 2005 standalone movie bearing the character’s name.

It remains to be seen if Deadpool 3 will feature any other X-Men from days past, though rumors persist that’s the case and stars including Halle Berry could return. Her sporting silver hair like her character Storm in a social media post only fueled the fire.

Deadpool 3 opens May 3, 2024.

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