Australian actor Hugh Jackman recently spoke with MTV.com about his reprising the role of Wolverine for 20th Century Fox's mutant movie sequel, X-Men 2.
"It is bigger, actually, in every way," said Jackman about the Bryan Singer-directed sequel. "Fox has given {the sequel} more money. The action is twice as good, twice as much. I think it's more intense. My character certainly kicks some ass - a lot more butt kicking than I did in the first one, which is always good. It's good therapy. And I think it's funnier. I have to say it's a better movie than the first one. You get to explore the characters in a deeper way and the story in a deeper way."
"It starts with an assassination attempt on the president by a mutant," Jackman revealed. "So the whole world of the film is automatically ramped up to another level, where every mutant, whether it's Magneto {or Professor} Xavier, every mutant is wanted, to be round up and registered and corralled. And there's almost a war going on with the humans. And you cut to my character going off to Alberta and going through the woods to find out about my past."
"Xavier's led me up there {and} there's a decent clue that's led to this base, Alkali Lake base," Jackman said. "And the fans will know what this is about. This definitely {draws} inspiration from 'Weapon X', which is one of the all-time great X-Men comics. And you find out a lot. As the movie goes on, Wolverine finds out more and more. He's having a lot of flashbacks still. 'What's going on?' He's starting to remember more. And then he gets to confront the person who changed him into Wolverine."
And it's not just the storyline that will seem familiar to fans of the Marvel mythos. When Wolverine arrives in Alberta, viewers will need eagle-eyes to spot all the comic book references that the set designers slipped into X2's Weapon X facility - an X-ray of Angel's wings, a Stark Industries logo, and John Proudstar's name on a morgue locker door, just to name a few. Logan will also get to use his trademark word "bub" a few times if producer Tom DeSanto gets his way.
"It wasn't written into the {original X-Men movie} script," Jackman explained. "Tom, in every scene, kept saying, 'Can we put "bub" in there?' And Bryan was like, 'I don't know, it's gonna sound weird.' But I just kept ad-libbing it, so I think it ended up {in there} once. And there's definitely one time, maybe twice, in this movie. So if it gets cut out, it's not my fault."
As to future movie sequels, a Fox studio representative told MTV.com that such a prospect, in lieu of a full-blown X-Men 3, could be ideal from a cost standpoint. Fewer stars means a lower budget, and Singer, for one, is open to the idea.
"It all depends on the story," the director explained. "Do I have an idea for a story, and that kind of thing. It would take some conversation, but ultimately any opportunity to work with Hugh Jackman is very appealing to me. He's awesome. He's an absolute pleasure to work with and a great guy and friend."
"I think there's a great window from when we met Wolverine, which was 15 years after he was turned into Wolverine," Jackman said. "It was 15 years when he was on his own, in fact, without the X-Men. And the comic is rich with the stories and the people he got involved with. And I think that'll be fascinating. And I think that's probably six or seven movies we can get out of that. Mind you, I'll be 75 when we finish it."