With The Wolverine becoming the second-highest grossing instalment of the X-Men franchise, it came as little surprise when it was announced that Fox had tapped director James Mangold to develop a treatment for a sequel, which is expected to see Hugh Jackman returning for an eighth – or ninth, should X-Force beat it into cinemas and Wolverine happen to be included in the roster – outing as Marvel’s feral mutant Logan. Speaking to The Wall Street Journal to coincide with the DVD and Blu-ray release of The Wolverine, Mangold has confirmed that he’s been meeting with Jackman about the storyline for the third Wolverine solo movie, as well as offering some insight into what we might expect from the film:
“I’ve talked with Hugh and he said he’d like to continue and I would love to do this again, but we’re just refining that story and working on making a script. All other decisions flow from there… I would just say it is always going to be about his relationships to other characters. We are very much trying to work with existing text. There are other great Wolverine stories out there but suffice it to say there are great texts about his connections to others, villains, characters from the lore and from the comics that we can bring out and have another great and meaningful adventure.”
Mangold then went on to address the possibility of Wolverine donning his iconic yellow costume, which was briefly glimpsed in the alternative ending to this year’s solo movie: “A lot of fans keep asking about when he’s going to wear his uniform. It’s a struggle for us in relation to question, because Logan’s personality as developed onscreen and in comics is one in which he hates publicity. The filmmakers, even on X-Men, have struggled with an outfit. Finding the rationale for a uniform when the character disdains self promotion, why he would put on some outfit that promotes himself as some kind of hero? It’s like Dirty Harry didn’t walk around with special outfit. There’s a difficult line to walk. He’s not a show off, he’s the last one to put on a team jersey. The flesh and blood character is very loyal to that iconoclastic rebel who doesn’t seem to be the first to don spandex. It isn’t something I’ve talked about much. Some fans may be frustrated, but we’re trying to be true to his character. Who knows whether that will change, I cannot verify and will not deny.”
As yet, there’s no word on a potential release date for The Wolverine sequel, but Jackman will be donning the claws again next may for the release of Bryan Singer’s X-Men: Days of Future Past.
Originally published December 3, 2013. Updated November 28, 2022.
