With the news that an Apocalypse film is following X-Men Days of Future Past, you have to wonder how many more Wolverine films Hugh Jackman has in him. Maybe he’s not a part of Apocalypse, but that’s hard to imagine if it follows Days of Future Past so closely. I was one who really enjoyed The Wolverine and if they hadn’t have awkwardly jammed Viper into the mix, I think it would have been fantastic. I’m glad Mangold and Jackman are reteaming. The following is an excerpt from a ComingSoon talk with Mangold about his plans for the sequel.
20th Century Fox is looking to get another Wolverine movie made, and director James Mangold is in the process of developing it. In an interview withThe Wall Street Journal the director talked about the first film, as well as the sequel. He talks about the themes and ideas that the sequel explores, and he addresses the iconic costume. Here’s what he had to say about the first movie,
“With the movie I just finished, I think that I very much focused, when I went to Fox and presented, I told them I was interested in making a movie about someone who feels like anyone they love will die, not only that they are cursed but that anyone they become attached to becomes cursed. That film was about Logan’s jaundiced view of society.”
Mangold is not developing a story for the sequel, and Hugh Jackman will return to the iconic role. He went on to discus some of the themes and ideas in the sequel. Without giving too many details, the director said,
“I would just say it is always going to be about his relationships to other characters. We are very much trying to work with existing text. There are other great Wolverine stories out there but suffice it to say there are great texts about his connections to others, villains, characters from the lore and from the comics that we can bring out and have another great and meaningful adventure.”
As far as the iconic costume goes, which was teased in a deleted scene, he says,
“A lot of fans keep asking about when he’s going to wear his uniform. It’s a struggle for us in relation to question, because Logan’s personality as developed onscreen and in comics is one in which he hates publicity. The filmmakers, even on X-Men, have struggled with an outfit. Finding the rationale for a uniform when the character disdains self promotion, why he would put on some outfit that promotes himself as some kind of hero? It’s like Dirty Harry didn’t walk around with special outfit.”
I don’t care what he says, I would love to see Wolverine finally put on the costume, and I know a lot of the fans want to see it, too. He’s not fully Wolverine without it. The director is then asked whether or not the next Wolverine movie would once again avoid telling the story of a superhero saving the world. He replies with the following,
“The simple thing is when the world is in danger. I think it is a cheat that a lot of movies do to create stakes, about how the world will blow up or a stadium or a planet or a region will blow up if x and y doesn’t happen by this time. Much more than the genre being tired, when every movie is about the destruction of the universe or the globe, it makes it hard to tell a meaningful story when the scale gets so huge, it dwarfs the characters.”
That’s not really a yes or no answer, but it will be interesting to see what Mangold is planning for the sequel. It will definitely be based on already existing material, but there’s so much out there, it’s hard to guess where they will take it.
Related articles
- James Mangold On THE WOLVERINE Sequel (comicbookmovie.com)
- Hugh Jackman Making New WOLVERINE Movie with James Mangold! (geektyrant.com)
- ‘Wolverine’ Sequel in Works, With James Mangold in Talks to Write Treatment (thewrap.com)
