Talking to The Playlist while promoting his latest movie, Real Steel Hugh Jackman has let slip a ton of details on The Wolverine and much more. To read the interview in full (where you'll be able to hear more from the actor on why he has stuck with the character all these years) be sure to click on the link below to head on over to the site.
On The Current Status Of The Wolverine:
"If it wasn’t for ‘Les Mis,’ we’re ready now. Now that Jim [Mangold]’s on board, we’re ready to go. For ‘Les Mis’ to work, we would have had to start “Wolverine,” basically, yesterday. So when we needed to press the button, we weren’t quite ready. So it will happen straight after."
On Why Darren Aronofsky Dropped Out Of The Wolverine:
"His personal life precluded him from making the movie. I asked him to do ‘X-Men 3,’ I asked him to do ‘Wolverine’ one and he said, ‘It’s not so much for me.’ And then he read this and said, ‘Man, I’m in. This is the best comic movie script I’ve ever read’ and he’s been dying to do one for a long time."
On What Makes James Mangold The Right Choice To Direct:
"Many directors wanted to do this film, I’m happy to say, because of the strength of the script. When he came in he just had such a clear vision of where this movie should go. He had the best take. He’s done many, many genres. I look at ‘3:10 to Yuma,’ and when he started talking about ‘The Outlaw Josey Wales’ I was like, ‘Okay, now we’re on the right track.” He had a couple of things which, I think, even in Darren’s version of the script, hadn’t been solved that he just knew he had the key."
On The Reasons Behind The Script Rewrites And Tone Of The Movie:
When a director takes over any script, they need to make it their movie. So Jim hired Mark to help him make the movie his own. Darren had worked on the script himself and taken it in a certain direction that was right for him. And that would have been a great version of the movie. I’ve seen Jim’s version now and, you know, Jim saw things that weren’t working for him that were working for Darren. And I’ve got to hand it to Fox and to Jim, it’s easy when you start with the best script we’ve had from Chris McQuarrie. Which is why Darren signed on. So once you have that, that’s 80, 85 percent of your movie.
"It’s a little darker and, I think, a little more true to the character. If you read all of [the Japanese saga] there is a lot of it that is a little disparate and some of it’s got X-Men in it. There’s a wedding and all that. So we take license with that."
On The Chances Of X-Men 4:
"I don’t see it. I can only see one movie ahead. I'm pretty sure I’m well into the second half of this match. I don’t know exactly when the end is, but I only go one at a time. If this is the last one, fingers crossed, man, I just hope we finally get that hole in one."
On Whether We'll See Him In X-Men: First Class 2:
"If they come up with as good of an idea as last time. Yeah, I could see it."