The next installment in the wildly popular X-Men franchise is a film called The Wolverine.
The movie is tipped to be a spinoff as well as a follow-up that tracks Logan, otherwise known as The Wolverine, after the events of X-Men: The Last Stand.
The franchise will reportedly see Hugh Jackman back as Wolverine as he takes on Japan’s criminal underworld. The story line for the movie is reportedly an adaptation of the 1982 miniseries by Chris Claremont and Frank Miller dubbed “Wolverine,” which director James Mangold describes as mostly faithful.
“A lot of that story and a lot of beats from that saga are in there – and a lot of characters. Without being religious about it, I think it’s a very admiring adaptation,” Mangold recently told Entertainment Weekly.
“Obviously when you’re adapting anything you make some changes. But all the characters are there – Yukio, Viper, Mariko, Shingen, and Logan. The whole cast of characters that exist in that world exists in our film.”
If you’re a big fan of the previous standalone Wolverine film X-Men Origins: Wolverine you may be wondering why the director didn’t choose to pick up where that film left off.
According to Mangold: “It was only to my advantage to set it after the X-Men films because the X-Men had effectively ended at that point. A lot of the key characters had died. There was a sense if I’m locating this film not five minutes after the other movie, but a period of time after that last X-Men movie, I can find a Logan who is living separate from the world. He is no longer a member of some superhero team.”
This film also apparently brings Logan’s mutant healing capabilities to the forefront and how he deals with those powers to the forefront.
“What I wrote on the back of the script when I first read it was ‘Everyone I love will die.’ The story I’ve been telling, he enters it believing that. […] The thing Hugh and I try to explore in this one is the most interesting aspect of the character — the never-ending nature of his life. His immortality. The fact he can heal from anything. That is a kind of dream for us mere mortals. But it’s interesting to explore what a curse that is,” Mangold added.
The Wolverine is set to hit theaters on July 26, 2013.
