Word is that James Mangold and Hugh Jackman have successfully pitched another solo Wolverine film based on the strong international returns on The Wolverine. Things are still early, but negotiations for a deal are already happening between Fox X-Men mega-producer Lauren Shuler Donner and Mangold, who will subsequently write a treatment.
If only Wolverine’s first solo film wasn’t a cast-off abortion of a superhero film, or the franchise would be back around and able to use the 3rd movie convention of the Wolverine claws/roman numerals poster again…
I’m a big fan of Mangold and Jackman’s X-film, and I would love to see them explore another character-driven, more contained adventure story. There are story pitfalls they could watch out for this time, but I believe these guys found success at a more sustainable superhero scale. They showed the world is open to a slightly darker (not gritty), more sophisticated (in terms of character) kind of superhero film that a lot more cool characters could inhabit on the screen, if the studios will wise up. More Blade and The Wolverine rather than more A-listers that exist only to counter massive amounts of material destruction, ya know?
The Wolverine followed the trend of a real turn we saw this year- one that was more distinctly forming a few weeks earlier with Pacific Rim. That would be tentpole films that do modestly or even poorly in the states, yet do well enough overseas to be fairly easy sequel greenlights. The Wolverine is the worst-faring domestic X-film, yet it is second only to The Last Stand in overseas grosses.
Cross your fingers the world shows better taste than the American public has for the last few years, because that trend is not going away…
Source | Deadline