James Mangold Talks “The Wolverine”, Frank Miller, Japan And Martial Arts!

By Comic Book Therapy on Oct 31, 2011 with Comments 1

Fox’s X-Men Origins follow-up, The Wolverine, is due to begin filming next year and James Mangold was the man tasked by Fox/Hugh Jackman to bring our favorite mutant back into the big screen.

James recently sat down with The Playlist and was kind enough to provide us all with some interesting information and what exactly can we expect from The Wolverine.

Why this sequel works for him

“You could actually just tell a story about this amazing character from the start, just the way they do when you really read a comic. You don’t have to spend the first hour saying how they were born; you can actually just find them in an emotional space, in the middle of action, and what happens is you’re not crowded with cutting to nine other action heroes. You can really make a movie about this dude.”

His relationship with Darren Aronofsky‘s and how it affected his decision

“I spoke to Darren a bit about The Wolverine before I ended up taking it on. But I will tell you that when Darren stepped off, I was in the middle of doing a lot of other things, and when it was brought up to me, I actually didn’t even consider it for the very reasons you’re talking about. It was, oh, who wants to do that, and follow that, and I could hear all of the media swirl about it.”

“Several months went by and I hadn’t even really read it, and later when they came back to me and I kind of took it in, and a lot of that hand-wringing had kind of died down,”

“What I saw was some really promising material, and to me an interesting character played by a great friend of mine who’s a terrific actor, Hugh Jackman.”

Why is The Wolverine so different from other movies and why he is doing it

It’s a kind of adventure following such a unique character like Wolverine in a really unique environment. I mean, the fact that half of the characters in this movie speak Japanese, this is like a foreign-language superhero movie that’s as much a drama and a detective story and a film noir, with high-octane action as it is anything like a conventional tentpole film.”

“I think part of the reason I’m doing this picture has been because it isn’t to me a conventional superhero movie. 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 them are. It’s actually a character piece; I actually think it has more in common with ‘The Outlaw Josey Wales’ and ‘Chinatown,’ what we’re doing, than the conventional, ‘will Wolverine and his compatriots save the world from this thermonuclear device’ question.”

What Frank Miller’s Japan-centered comics brings to the sequel

“I think that this movie is much more an intense psychological and action-packed character piece, that’s much more about Logan getting lost in this very unique and insulated world of Japanese culture, gangster culture, and ninja culture. The fighting is going to be unique because it’s all influenced by Japanese martial arts.”

The storyline and the dark and intense character that Wolverine is

“I think more than anything, it’s a character piece, asking really interesting questions that are what pulled me in about what it means to be immortal. What is it to live forever, when you lose everyone you’ve ever loved? Either you watch them get killed, or you just lose them by attrition. What is it to feel the burden of saving mankind through all of its mistakes, over and over and over again. What’s the toll it takes on you as a living being that is somehow living this Frankensteinian, eternal life? And there’s a lot of interesting dramatic questions we’re going to deliver on as well as some really inventive action.”

“I like to think that we’re out to make that Wolverine movie that people have been looking forward to seeing, which takes on some of the darker and more intense aspects of the character, and his own journey, that have not necessarily been possible in the Wolverine origin story that they did or obviously when he’s sharing so much time as a character with so many others in X-Men.”

Head on over to The Playlist and read James Mangold talking about Wolverine’s immortality and working with screenwriter Mark Bomback. Click here to read the full interview at The Playlist.

The Wolverine is set to go before cameras next year and you can look for it in theaters some time in 2013.

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News, Reviews, Interviews, Event Coverage, Editorials, Games, Tv Shows, Collectibles and much more from the Comic Book World. We’re just like you, lovers of all things comic books and comic book related. We’re a fun collection of international writers who share the passion of a good ZOINKS!, POW!, BLAM! and SNIKT! Along with giving you the goods on the “Big Two” – Marvel and DC – we’re also going to focus on indie publishers as well as up and coming artists and writers.