When Darren Aronofsky exited The Wolverine, many thought that a creative (and by creative, we mean different) take on the superhero genre left with him. The addition of Knight and Day director James Mangold seemed to validate those thoughts but Mangold has demonstrated that he is equally up to the task, creativity-wise.
Mangold has said that this Wolverine sequel will be much more of a character piece along the lines of The Outlaw Josey Wales and Chinatown.
"You can actually tell a story about this amazing character from the start just the way you do when you read a comic. It isn't an origin story, so I'm freed from that burden, and it also isn't a save-the-world movie, which most of them are. We're not crowded with cutting nine other action heroes. We can actually make a movie about this dude."
The plan remains to adapt the classic 1982 Wolverine mini-series by Chris Claremont and Frank Miller, which has Logan heading to Japan and pits him against supernatural gangsters The Hand, battling The Silver Samurai and features a romantic subplot involving the daughter of a Yakuza family. This won't be a straight frame-by-frame adaptation though.
"There's not a page that hasn't been reworked and rethought and storyboarded. Part of connecting to the movie for me was developing the scenes and finding the locations and devising the action scenes. It's all about making it your own."
Mangold goes on to say that the sequel will be an intense psychological and action-packed character piece."It's much more about Logan getting lost in these very insulated worlds of Japanese culture, gangster culture and ninja culture. The fighting is all influenced by martial arts and half the characters in this movie speak Japanese. This is like a foreign language superhero movie."
Hugh Jackman seems to be on the same page having also name-dropped Clint Eastwood's classic 1976 western and saying he's wanted to make this story since the beginning.
The big question is will X-Men, Wolverine and superhero movie fans be up for this version of Wolverine. What are your thoughts on this Mangold's take?
