Kevin Feige got to fulfill a twenty-four year-long dream with Deadpool & Wolverine.

Per Comicbook.com, director Shawn Levy and co-stars Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman appeared in Shanghai, China to promote Deadpool’s Marvel Cinematic Universe debut, where he revealed the lone request Feige gave him when pitching Deadpool & Wolverine‘s crossover idea with Reynolds. “He said, ‘Yes, but he wears the yellow. Can he finally wear the yellow.’ And we began,” Levy recalled of Feige, whose Marvel career began as an associate producer on the set of Bryan Singer’s original X-Men.

According to Reynolds, the idea of recruiting Jackman dates back to his early interactions with Feige, noting “the first thing I said to him, ‘I just want to make Wolverine and Deadpool together. I just want these two together on screen.’ At the time, Kevin said, ‘Forget it. It’s never going to happen.’ And I said, ‘Okay, that’s fine.'” As a result, the Deadpool star and Levy — who previously collaborated with him on Free Guy and The Adam Project — thought up a variety of alternate storylines to Marvel with little success, admitting, “one day, we were on our last pitch. We were about to say to Kevin Feige, ‘I think we’re going to walk away and we’ll come back later, maybe in a couple years, when we have a better sense of things.’ And Hugh happened to call me.” For Jackman, a possible Wolverine return was briefly discussed with Feige, who cautioned him against doing so due to how well Wolverine’s story ended in 2017’s acclaimed Logan. Yet, while driving, Jackman began thinking, “‘What do I want to do?’ And as soon as I asked the question, I wanted to do Deadpool & Wolverine. I just knew it. I drove for another hour. Couldn’t stop thinking about it. And I got out of the car, called Ryan, and said, ‘Ryan, if you’ll have me, I’m in.'”

Deadpool and Wolverine Finally Get Their Own Movie

Aside from a The Wolverine deleted scene, Deadpool & Wolverine marks the live-action debut of Wolverine’s yellow suit, whose color scheme was infamously made fun of in X-Men by Cyclops. Jackman’s new Wolverine’s background remains unclear, though Deadpool & Wolverine’s trailers featured TVA agent Paradox (Matthew MacFadyen) informing Deadpool that this variant “let down his entire world” to an unknown catastrophe. Additional characters, meanwhile, range from Reynolds’ Deadpool supporting cast to Jackman’s X-Men co-stars Aaron Stanford and Tyler Mane as Pyro and Sabertooth, while the trailers previewed other familiar faces like Lady Deathstrike and Azazel.

In recent years, Marvel Studios has begun incorporating X-Men characters into the MCU through post-Avengers Endgame films like Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and The Marvels. Possible details about a new X-Men film, according to Feige, may come after Deadpool & Wolverine‘s release, though he refused to comment further on the matter.

Deadpool & Wolverine arrives in theaters on July 26.