Familiar Faces Revealed in New Wolverine Trailer

2009 hasn't even begun yet, but it's already shaping up to be a good year for Hugh Jackman. In November, he was chosen as the "Sexiest Man Alive" by People Magazine and in February, Jackman will host the 81st annual Academy Awards ceremony. Last weekend, the trailer for Jackman's newest film X-Men Origins: Wolverine aired before showings of The Day the Earth Stood Still and according to reactions, audiences were more thrilled with the trailer than with the movie they went to see.

Wolverine has Hugh Jackman reprising his famous role as the adamantium-clawed super-hero and reveals the humble beginnings of the infamous super-hero. The origins of Wolverine have always been murky, but the film intends to fill in the gaps leading up to the events of the first X-Men film released in 2000. Writer and director David S. Goyer has stated that if Wolverine is successful, then the origins film about villain Magneto will be given the green light.

Wolverine follows the mysterious past of the super-hero, his relationship with Victor Creed/Sabretooth and the Weapon X program. The trailer not only gave audiences a sneak peek into the life of Wolverine before the X-Men, but it revealed surprise appearances by characters of the X-Men series that have not been in films previously.

Sabretooth / Victor Creed

Wolverine's nemesis Sabretooth will be played by Liev Schreiber. Sabretooth is a powerful mutant and longtime enemy of Wolverine. Possessing bestial superhuman physical abilities, including rapid healing, razor-sharp fangs and claws and hyper senses, Sabretooth is a force to be reckoned with. Fans may have ignore Sabretooth's role in the first X-Men film, as the Sabretooth shown in 2000 was a burly, hairy hulk who barely said two words and was not nearly as vital as his character is in Wolverine.

Deadpool / Wade Winston Wilson

Played by Ryan Reynolds, Deadpool first appeared in comic books in 1991. Nicknamed the "Merc with a Mouth", Deadpool is a wisecracking high-tech mercenary and a product of the Weapon X program along with Wolverine. Weapon X cured his terminal cancer by giving him the regenerative "healing factor" that both Wolverine and Sabretooth possess.

Gambit / Remy LeBeau

Gambit, played by "Friday Night Lights" actor Taylor Kitsch, has been a character that many fans wanted included in the original X-Men trilogy from the beginning. In Wolverine, it looks as though he'll play a decent part in the film. Gambit, the Cajun-accented ladies man, possesses the ability to charge matter with kinetic energy, making anything (especially his trademark playing cards) into a lethal weapon.

Kestrel / John Wraith

Will.i.am. of the music group The Black Eyed Peas will take on the role of Kestrel. A member of Team X, Kestrel was a powerful teleporter with a love of explosives. Like many of the other Team X members, he was given an artificial age suppressant to hide his true age.

Blob / Frederick J. Dukes

The Blob, played by LOST bad boy Kevin Durand, has been a part of the X-Men comics since 1964. The Blob claims to be unmovable and with the extreme amount of body mass, that's easily believed. This body mass gives him superhuman strength and his own gravitational pull, which allows him to act out his role as the bully time and time again.

Silver Fox

Silver Fox was a one-time lover of Wolverine. A Native Canadian Blackfoot, she was supposedly murdered by Sabretooth, only to be found alive and a part of the Weapon X project.

Briefly appearing in the trailer were Storm/Ororo Munroe and Jason Stryker as children. Storm, the mutant with the ability to manipulate the weather, has appeared in all three X-Men films (played by Halle Berry).

Jason Stryker was featured X-2. The son of Weapon X mastermind William Stryker, Jason was once a student of Professor Xavier's. However, after he wasn't "cured", Jason used his psychic powers to take revenge on his parents, driving his mother to commit suicide. William Stryker then had Jason lobotomized so he would obey only his orders, depriving him of free will and manipulating him into helping him destroy the mutant race.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine will be released to theaters May 1^st, 2009. The trailer can be viewed here.

X-Men Origins: WolverineCharacters, Internapse.com

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X-Men Origins: Wolverine Trailer