hugh jackman logan

Right from the beginning Hugh Jackman and director James Mangold have stated that ‘Logan‘ would be different from the previous ‘X-Men’ films and from the trailers and stills released, it was obviously so. But how different is the film really? Jackman has revealed that his last outing as Wolverine doesn’t even take place in the same universe as the previous mutant movies!

Jackman dropped the bombshell in an interview with Digital Spy:

“When you see the full movie you’ll understand. Not only is it different in terms of timeline and tone, it’s a slightly different universe. It’s actually a different paradigm and that will become clear.”

Since ‘Logan’ is the final time Jackman will play the character (side note: never say never as Ryan Reynolds is still hoping for a Deadpool team up with Jackman as Wolverine), Fox was gracious enough to give him and Mangold carte blanche on how they wanted to develop the film:

“I said this was my last one and they said make the movie you want to make.”

Jackman went on to explain the reasoning for the separate universe:

“… Jim [Mangold] and I had this blank canvas and we wanted to make something really different. Definitely tonally different, I kept thinking The Wrestler, Unforgiven. He was thinking Unforgiven as well and The Gauntlet and these other movies which just seemed to really match his character. Early on we had the idea for the title not having anything to do with Wolverine in it but just being about the man. And what the collateral damage of being Wolverine your entire life would be.”

Another reason for this separation seems to be the fact that since ‘X-Men: Days of Future Past,’ the X-Men universe timeline has been a bit convoluted:

“[Following the timelines] becomes a chess game that you try to serve, which actually doesn’t help to tell a story and it’s sort of been a bit all over the place. I’m not critical of it – X-Men was the first movie really in comic book, no one thought there’d be another and there were different directors different off shoots.”

It’s a standalone movie in many ways. It’s not really beholden to time lines and story lines in the other movies. Obviously Patrick Stewart was in there so we have some crossover but it feels very different and very fresh.”

When ‘Logan’ is released, it will beg us to wonder, what then happens to the Wolverine in the X-Men universe proper? Does that mean the X-23 that we see in this film doesn’t exist in the other? Although it is a standalone film, will it still be considered as canon?

Let us know what you think in the comments below.

‘Logan’ claws its way into theaters on March 1in the U.K. and March 3 in the U.S.

horizontal lineJanice Kay is the Senior Editor of ScienceFiction.com. When not working, you can most likely find her drinking copious amount of mochas while in front of a TV binge watching on sci-fi shows. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.