Everyone has high hopes for The Wolverine. The last installment in the series, Origins, was pretty much a flop in the mind of most viewers. It didn’t delivery on the promise of Wolverine from either the X-Men movies or the comics. It tried to please everyone and in the process didn’t please anyone.
That’s why fans are all looking forward to ‘The Wolverine’ with high expectations to wash away that bad taste in our mouths from the last one. In an interview with Yahoo UK, director James Mangold recently sat down to talk shop about the film and let us know a bit of his thoughts on the movie and why this is the Wolverine film that you’ll be glad you saw.
As we all know, Hugh Jackman was unhappy with how Wolverine was portrayed in the past as the character has been a bit tamer than what we expect from him to be. How are they planning on addressing that this time around?
I think we tooled him darker and we lightened up on the jokes. What I told Hugh to think about as a model was Clint Eastwood in the classic westerns, particularly ‘Outlaw Josey Wales’. Man of few words, still a sense of humour, but just dangerous. I wanted him to feel dangerous, more than anything else. And vulnerable too, but not looking for help. Just kind of going on, but that the audience shares and understands his pain.
With Wolverine straying so far from the source material in the past you might worry that’s happening this time around. The Japanese Saga is a classic piece of Wolverine literature and really defines quite a bit of how Logan has slowly evolved into the man he is today. Worried they’ll be straying too far from that in the film?
I hope fans really enjoy this film. We put a lot of attention in to trying to really live within the world that Chris Claremont and Frank Miller had created in the Japanese Saga. But also where we left, we also tried to live within the important themes and the right tone of ‘The Wolverine’ graphic saga.
The whole world – every character in the movie is in Claremont/Miller. They’re all in it, with only modest re-toolings of the set-up. For instance in Claremont/Miller, Logan has an ongoing relationship with Mariko, in this film they’re meeting when the film begins. Well that makes sense. It’d be kind of odd to just open on a movie with a guy living in the wilderness who has an ongoing relationship with a Japanese woman. It’s not quite right. It worked perfectly well in the comic, but that fact is that it’s different.
So it looks like fans might actually just be getting what they want out of this one. I sure as hell hope so as this is one of the pivotal points in Wolverine’s career and, as I stated above, really is what shapes his character.
It’s not all Wolverine in the interview though and James is asked a great question on what he would do given an opportunity to work for DC on a movie.
The Sandman. Neil Gaiman’s ‘Sandman’ is a great property. Actually I’ve talked to Neil about it before. I think it’s one of the great really interesting modernist tales. Also, on the complete other side of the universe I’ve always been a fan of The Flash. Although the outfit would have to definitely change, with those little wigs on his ears.
While the Flash is an interesting choice (and a character I could see them working on soon as they have plans on him being in the Justice League Movie) I really like the sound of ‘The Sandman’ being brought up. Gaiman has created some of the most vivid worlds out there and very few have made it to the screen (big or small) successfully and this one I feel is a blockbuster waiting to happen.
What are your thoughts on ‘The Wolverine’? Do you think it will finally channel the comic that we’ve been wanting to see all of this time or are we about to get another cash grab from the studios?
You can read the complete interview over at Yahoo UK to find out more of the director’s thoughts on ‘The Wolverine’!
