Hugh Jackman is shooting The Wolverine in Australia now and says the new film stands alone and will not directly tie to the Logan’s previous solo movie.
“We’ve deliberately not called it Wolverine 2 because we want it to be placed and feel like a standalone picture,” Jackman tells Total Film (via Coventry Telegraph). “With an all-new cast and setting it in Japan, it’s going to give us a whole new visual aesthetic.”
The Wolverine is based on the story by Chris Claremont and Frank Miller, set in Japan and Logan battles the Silver Samurai.
Op/Ed: Now that we know the X-Men: First Class sequel will be based on Days of Future Past it would make sense to have Jackman play a much older Logan in the sequel’s nightmare future scenes. This would be a great swan song for Jackman as the cinematic Wolverine.
Producer Bryan Singer confirms that the sequel to X-Men: First Class will be titled Days of Future Past and based on the classic story by Chris Claremont. For an X-Men comic reader – it’s close to the Holy Grail of mutant epics.
“It’s going to be very ambitious. It deals will aspects of that comic but also some very new things”Singer tells IGN.
Uncanny X-Men #141 courtesy Marvel.com
In Uncanny X-Men #141 and 142 the Days of Future Past was a powerhouse two-part story in two timelines. In a future North America rules by Sentinels (mutant hunting robots) most super heroes have been hunted down and exterminated or imprisoned. Magneto, Storm, Colossus and his wife Kate (Kitty Pryde) are in the camp. Rachel Summers (daughter of Scott/Cyclops and Jean Grey) and Franklin Richards (son of Reed and Sue of the Fantastic Four) are together and living in the prison camp too. Wolverine is with an underground resistance movement.
The future X-Men conceive a daring plot to rewrite history and change the nightmare future. Rachel uses her psionic powers to send Kate’s consciousness into the past and into the body of Kitty Pryde who just joined the X-Men. Kitty must convince the mutants to go to Washington, D.C. to prevent the assassination of Senator Robert Kelly by the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants led by Mystique. The killing of Kelly led to the country’s hatred of mutants and implementation of Sentinels. While the past X-Men race to prevent the assassination, the remaining future X-Men fight the Sentinels.
Uncanny X-Men #142 courtesy Marvel.com
Since this storyline features a much older Wolverine and Hugh Jackman is getting older…maybe Jackman could make an appearance as the older Logan leading the underground resistance movement in the future.
The next X-Men film will likely not follow the storyline exactly but it could be an exciting way to reboot the entire film franchise but like Spock created a new timeline in JJ Abrams Star Trek.
We could forget X-Men: The Last Stand ever happened. Professor Xavier and Cyke would still be alive. It could be a whole new beginning for the film franchise and I love Rachel Summers.
Avengers vs. X-Men #9 The last Avenger standing is…Spider-Man? The embattled heroes stage a raid on the X-prison and the true nature of the Phoenix Force is revealed.
Earth 2 #4 Green Lantern, Flash and Hawkgirl against the ancient evil crawling out of the planet. Plus the debut of the Atom-Smasher!
The First X-Men #1 The legendary Neal Adams reveals a secret chapter Wolverine and the X-Men long before Professor founded the team.
Hawkeye #1The Avengers’ archer in a brand new series by Matt Fraction and David Aja with Young Avenger Kate Bishop under Clint’s wing.
X-Factor #241Is this the beginning of the end? Havok is on the way out. Strong Guy is ticked. All the book’s long running plotlines are coming together in Breaking Points. The big payoff for Marvel’s odd mutant detectives starts here!
A brand new, old school adventure with Marvel’s mutants drawn and co-written by a living legend. The First X-Men #1 is out this week kicking off a 5 part limited series written and drawn by Neal Adams with Christos Gage scripting.
“You guys probably know I was at one time associated with X-Men…then they canceled the book. I had great fondness for the original X-Men, had the time of my life, then they canceled it,” said Adams referring to this era (1969-70.)
“At the beginning, Stan and Jack were experimenting. You had Professor X, bald and in a wheelchair. These strange kids already in costume. It seems to me like this was not the beginning of the story, but the middle,” Adams tells Marvel.com.
“Of all the mutants on Earth, Professor X could easily pass as a human. Why would he want to get involved in this? Maybe all this was going on before Professor X was Professor X…when Professor X was a teenager. Maybe mutant kids were getting abused by the military, by the government. Somebody would have been looking out for them, but maybe that person came to Charles Xavier, realizing he couldn’t protect these kids. That was my pitch,” Adams revealed.
“Marvel was very generous to provide Christos Gage to me, who is an expert in all this stuff. He’s taking my pitch and turning it into scripts that are in my opinion groundbreaking. It’s the X-Men before there were X-Men,” Adams said about his partner.
The First X-Men by Neal Adams courtesy Marvel.com
From the preview it appears Logan is the leader of this team before the team.
“How deeply is Wolverine entrenched in the X-Men? Why was this first team…maybe a failure? Lots of questions to answer.
It takes place before the original X-Men and at a time when the government was snatching mutants up and doing scary things to them. Logan notices this and thinks somebody needs to look out for them. He recruits Sabretooth, who asks ‘Why?’ and so he pays him. Professor Xavier is a young man studying at Oxford, who’s engaged and wants nothing to do with this,” Adams reveals about the lineup.
“In those early X-Men stories, everybody hates and fears them, but we never really know why. It’s so core to the concept, but it was there before the series started. Here we found out why mutants are so hated and feared in a way that is different from any other super heroes,” adds X-Men Editor Nick Lowe.
Wolverine targets the future master of magnetism for his team. Gage says “They recruit this guy Erik Lensherr who is out there killing Nazis…”
“The natural instinct is that this is like the ‘X-Men: First Class’ movie, but it’s not,” Adams states but adds, “We didn’t mind stealing the Nazi Hunter version of Magneto though.”
Gage calls Wolverine a soldier putting together a unit not a school in this series and Adams reveals more of Logan’s team.
“There’s a character who calls himself Bombastic Aghast, but they call him Bomb. Wolverine saves him from a cave-in then gives him a leather jacket that fits like a tent. He looks ridiculous, but he thinks it’s his costume. Later, Wolverine buys him a jacket that fits, but he throws it back in his face. That jacket means so much to him and represents his relationship with Wolverine. That’s the origin of his costume,” Adams confirms.
Fans may assume this retro tale is from an alternate timeline but the X-Office says this is not
“This is firmly set in continuity. This is not a What If. This is canon. This is key to Wolverine’s history and his relationships with other characters. This will answer questions that have been out there for decades,” says Lowe
“They do encounter ‘hobo’ Sub-Mariner at one point.” Christos Gage reveals. “He throws a car at Wolverine!” adds Adams
“We wanted this to be something you could hand to somebody who just saw the X-Men movies and they’d enjoy it as a good X-Men story. At the same time, for giant nerds like me, FBI agent Fred Duncan from the early stories is in there, and when Professor X talks about his brother you know it’s Juggernaut,” says Gage.
“There will be early versions of the Sentinels. I did the giant ones, now I’m getting to do different one,” revealed Adams
The First X-Men by Neal Adams courtesy Marvel.com
“Wolverine was a mercenary, and mercenaries make a lot of money. Wouldn’t it be interesting to find that Wolverine’s mercenary work funded…” Adams teased.
“The concept that Charles Xavier could pass for a human I don’t think has ever really been explored. At some point in his life, he made the difficult decision to step forward as leader of the X-Men and as a mutant. He could have wiped all of this out of the world’s collective mind. Why didn’t he? Stuff to think about,” Adams says of the mutant leader.
The First X-Men arrives this Wednesday 8/1/12. For the entire transcript here’s the Marvel.com link.
There’s a new X-Men book out this week that will remind you of X-books of the past but I’m intrigued by the fun and thrilling future Greg Pak has planned. X-Treme X-Men #1 spins out of Pak’s Exalted storyline in Astonishing X-Men. Alternate universe versions of Wolverine, Emma Frost and Nightcrawler (General Howlett, Emmeline Frost-Summers and Kurt Waggoner) work with a a twisted version of Charles Xavier to save the entire population of a doomed world.
Our world’s Dazzler is just enjoying life, fame and trying to hook up when Cyclops calls her in to power up a Ghost Box in order to help the new allies Cyke met in Exalted. It does NOT goes as planned and Alison is soon portal jumping with Howlett, Emmeline and Kurt on a mission from Xavier to kill Xavier.
I’m reminded of the Cross-Time Caper in Excalibur and Exiles. An odd assortment of heroes jumping through the multiverse in order to save it. Fun, humor, time travel and weird science could make this an entertaining Doctor Who/X-Men hybrid. I definitely see great potential.
Hugh Jackman, Director James Mangold and Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced the start of production on The Wolverine in Jackman’s homeland. The upcoming film is based on Logan’s adventure in Japan but it means $12.6 million to Australia’s film industry. Jackman reflects on his role as the fan favorite X-Man.
“I have been working for 12 years on the Wolverine character and while the franchise will go well beyond me, it really has been the backbone of my career,” he said, adding that he will hand in his Wolverine claws “when I stop loving it,” Jackman tells The Hollywood Reporter.
“This one has certainly been the most interesting and complex of the Superhero characters. I do take my career one (step) at a time and I feel like a golfer always looking for that hole in one.’
The Wolverine is based on the story by Chris Claremont and Frank Miller and hits theaters July 26, 2013. Logan will face the Silver Samurai, the Viper and the Yakuza crime family and fall for the love of his life, Lady Mariko.
Jessica Biel won’t be playing the Viper in The Wolverine. The actress was offered the role but talks broke down and the studio is looking at other stars according to Collider.
Now Svetlana Khodchenkova is in talks with Fox according to Twitch. The Russian actress recently appeared in the remake of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.
Hugh Jackman’s next film is based on the limited series by Chris Claremont and Frank Miller and focuses on Logan falling in love with a crime lord’s daughter in Japan.
The Viper is a mercenary of Eastern European descent who works for the Silver Samurai. He is mutant, half brother of the woman Logan loves, and heir to the clan. The Viper eventually becomes Madame Hydra, leader of the organization led by the Red Skull in the Captain America movie. In the Wolverine comic book Viper forced Logan to marry her in an effort to avoid an all out war between Hydra and The Hand.
Jessica Biel won’t be playing the Viper in The Wolverine. The actress was offered the role but talks broke down and the studio is looking at other stars according to Collider.
Hugh Jackman’s next film is based on the limited series by Chris Claremont and Frank Miller and focuses on Logan falling in love with a crime lord’s daughter in Japan. The Viper is a mercenary who works for the Silver Samurai – a mutant, half brother of the woman Logan loves, and heir to the clan. The Viper eventually becomes Madame Hydra, leader of the organization led by the Red Skull in the Captain America movie.
If Biel is out I say producers turn to her Total Recall co-star Kate Beckinsale. This would reteam Jackman and Beckinsale and stake the memories of their last on-screen appearance Van Helsing.
