Let’s be honest, the X-MEN franchise has been a mixed bag – although last year’s X-MEN prequel was… erm, first class, Bryan Singer’s original two films are hugely overrated, and LAST STAND and X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE pretty much just pants – and not even yellow spandex pants, which might have significantly improved Logan’s first solo film. That being the case, you’ll forgive THN for not getting too excited about his next outing, cleverly titled THE WOLVERINE. That was until we saw this new image – in which eagle eyed readers will notice Logan is sporting bone claws rather than adamantium – and read what director James Mangold had to say about the movie.
‘Where this film sits in the universe of the films is after them all,’ Mangold told Empire magazine, putting to rest rumours that THE WOLVERINE would be another prequel in the vein of ORIGINS. ‘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 particularly interesting as rumour has it Famke Janssen is tipped to make a cameo in the upcoming film. Bear in mind, Janssen’s Jean Grey is dead by the end of LAST STAND, meaning that if this film is set after those events, there will have to some trickery to revive character – though a quick dream sequence a la Ra’s al Ghul in THE DARK KNIGHT RISES could be on the cards.
Magold also claims the movie will take place outside of the other movies’ continuity, which sounds great to THN – the further the film can distance itself from what’s come before the better, as far as we’re concerned.
Says the director on the subject:
‘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.’
Whilst we know that some of the action will take place in Tokyo, with Logan becoming involved in a deadly gang war, there’s not much other information available at this time other than it was apparently set during WWII. The presence of bone claws is certainly interesting though – fans of the comics may assume this places the action pre-X-MEN and before the adamntium was fused to his skeleton, but with Mangold claiming this isn’t just another prequel (that could be just disinformation however), there could be something entirely unexpected on the horizon…
THE WOLVERINE is due for release 25th July 2013.
Source: Empire
