A new still of THE WOLVERINE has hit the web after appearing in Empire magazine, which shows Wolverine pumped up to the max and brandishing his bone claws. Most surprisingly of all though, is that THE WOLVERINE will not be a prequel to the X-MEN trilogy, but a sequel. Apparently the Japanese POW camp spotted, and this still below, are just from a flashback or opening to the main story. Director James Mangold has this to say:
Where this film sits in the universe of the films is after them all. Jean Grey is gone, most of the X-Men are disbanded or gone, so there’s a tremendous sense of isolation for him.
This is a fascinating revelation, as everybody just assumed it would take place right after X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE and would be based on the Chris Claremont and Frank Miller graphic novel Wolverine.
That’s something that for me was very important, that I land in a very specific place in his timeline. I wanted to be able to tell the story without the burden of handing it off to a film that already exists and having to conform to it. The ideas of immortality reign very heavily in this story and the burden of immortality weighs heavily on Logan. For me that’s such an interesting part of Logan’s character that is nearly impossible to explore if you have a kind of league or team movie.
It sounds as though this is going to be quite a surprising treat, and setting it after the events of X-MEN will give Wolverine the emotional element and actual memories to play off. Judging by the still, we may get a Wolverine/Bane spin-off set in the Labyrinth Pit of emotion.
THE WOLVERINE is released 26th July 2013. It stars Hugh Jackman, Will Yun Lee, Hiroyuki Sanada, Brian Tee, and Svetlana Khodchenkova.
Source: Empire
