It's easy to label the upcoming Logan as a comic book movie, but the film is aiming for different aspirations. It's clear from the title alone that this film isn't going to a "typical" movie about superheroes, as it tries to tell an intimate story worthy of Hugh Jackman's final performance as Wolverine. That's not an easy thing to do, and director James Mangold recently spoke about the challenges of filming Logan, and how it will differ from some of the other superhero films coming out in 2017.
We're just a few short months away from the release of Logan, and that means press junkets are about to go full swing. James Mangold recently sat down with Flicks and the City 2 to talk about the final Hugh Jackman-led Wolverine movie. When asked what was the most difficult aspect of filming, Mangold answered that it was being confident enough to deliver a film that bucks the trends of comic book movies and doesn't provide the same kind of eye-popping onscreen spectacle.
I think the biggest challenging part is being confident because so many of these other films have more money, frankly, and more spectacle. To being confident in believing that a movie like this can function on the power of drama first, instead of having some supervillain or planets colliding, that the movie first and foremost, its dramatic engine is running the emotional relationships between the characters... the thing we're trying to do differently is trying to invest in character.
Though Logan may lack the sort of grand spectacle we've come to expect from superhero movies, it's still one of the most exciting movies of 2017. There's plenty of other superhero films people can watch if they want to see a blue beam shot into the sky or a city destroyed. Logan as an intimate character drama sounds refreshing and worthy of the character that helped create the comic book movie boom in the first place. Deadpool was similarly a movie made without a gigantic budget, and it made that money back in spades. Logan likely won't see the same level of of success, but Deadpool was also an R-rated superhero film that went against the grain. And it worked out pretty well for them.
Here is the rest of James Mangold's interview, where he digs into working why this move had to be made for adults. It's a very interesting explanation, and you should definitely give it a look.
Of course, Logan will not be without its action action. This is an R-rated Wolverine movie after all, and early word on the film is that the action is amazing and finally lives up to Wolverine's berserker rage. We're talking severed limbs here people.
We'll all be able to see that when Logan takes its bow on March 3, 2017.
