Vinnie Jones turned down return as Juggernaut in Deadpool & Wolverine

Deadpool & Wolverine is one of the most hotly-anticipated movies of 2024, but Vinnie Jones has revealed to Yahoo UK that he turned the opportunity to star in it.

The actor played villain Juggernaut in X-Men: The Last Stand, but he has decided not to reprise the role in the third Deadpool movie despite being approached by director Shawn Levy. This, the actor says during his Role Recall interview, was because of his difficult experience making the 2006 superhero film.

"Funnily enough I just got asked to do Deadpool, the new one now, and I spoke to the director and I just said it's such a drama putting that suit on mentally and physically," he says.

Read more: Vinnie Jones looks back on his career so far

"I mean it had its mental toll as well because you're in it and you can't do anything all day, you can only drink through a straw. So we couldn't strike the deal for Deadpool [& Wolverine].

"But Deadpool's my favourite movie of all f***ing time more or less. I really wanted to do it, but they didn't have the budget to put me in the suit."

Deadpool & Wolverine sees Ryan Reynolds return as the Merc with a Mouth, and it marks the character's first outing as part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Reynolds is being joined by Hugh Jackman, who returns as the titular mutant he played in the original X-Men trilogy.

In the film, Deadpool is tasked by the TVA with travelling across the multiverse to help save the franchise and Juggernaut's appearance in the movie would have likely been linked to this narrative. Other heroes appearing in the film include Pyro (Aaron Stanford), who also appeared in X-Men: The Last Stand, and Jennifer Garner's iteration of Elektra. Casting rumours also suggest actors like Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen may return.

Read more: What you need to know about Deadpool 3

Jones explained that he found making X-Men: The Last Stand a "shambles" when Brett Ratner replaced Matthew Vaughn as director, saying the part of Juggernaut "was not the same role [he] had signed on to do" because they had "diluted" the part and minimised his dialogue.

He explained that Ratner had multiple directors filming the movie at the same time, and he found the experience very upsetting because of the way his role had been changed in favour of adding new characters and new moving parts, so much so he "lost all interest quite early because I knew they were just ticking me along".

X-Men: The Last Stand had a difficult journey to the silver screen, with X-Men and X2 director Bryan Singer leaving the franchise in favour of making Superman Returns with no plans for a third film in place. As such, it took time to find a new director and several people were approached including Guillermo del Toro and Zack Snyder.

In the end, despite not having a director, Fox announced that the film would be released on May 5, 2006 and filming would begin in June 2005. Vaughn was hired for the project, but in June that year he left it.

A week after his departure it was reported by Variety that he had left the project because he was apprehensive about taking on such a large project.

Watch: Vinnie Jones talks to Yahoo UK for Role Recall

The film had a tight deadline to stick to, and Ratner told Post Magazine in 2006 that when he took over he started post-production as soon as filming began in order to meet it. He would send scenes to be edited as soon as they were in the can, for example.

Ratner told the publication: “I’d have to hand over scenes and just pray that all the effects work would go smoothly. And the editing process was also so complicated.

"Usually for a project like this, I spend 10 weeks with the film and then I can make decisions after I see how the whole movie plays. But on this, I had to treat every scene like a mini-movie. I’d shoot a scene, edit it right away, and then we’d have to pull the trigger on locking it because of all the effects.”

From the writing perspective, there were many limitations put on co-writers Simon Kinberg and Zak Penn who had to fight the studio to keep the film's Dark Phoenix storyline, and also were limited on which mutants they could include because of the work happening simultaneously on X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

Read more: How the X-Men will change the MCU

It was during this writing process that Juggernaut was downsized, leaving Jones with a role he was deeply unhappy with as he admits: "I was very upset, really, because it was such a movie, such a big stage and [I] became an extra, that's what happened."

Deadpool & Wolverine premieres in cinemas and IMAX on 26 July, 2024.

Watch the trailer for Deadpool & Wolverine: