While Twentieth Century Fox may have given up on Daredevil, they have big plans for their flagship Marvel property in the X-Men. Much of the franchise’s headlines lately have focused on Bryan Singer’s and Matthew Vaughn’s upcoming sequel to X-Men: First Class which will ambitiously attempt to introduce time travel as a method of making sense of the continuity between all of their films.
Before X-Men: Day of Future Past becomes a reality, there’s another prequel that also aims to course correct the series, this one starring the franchise’s poster boy Hugh Jackman. The studio has just released the very first official piece of marketing for the film titled The Wolverine and it looks good.
Taking place after the events of X-Men Origins: Wolverine, but not serving as a direct sequel, James Mangold’s The Wolverine explores one of the most iconic stories in the character’s comic book history: Claremont and Frank Miller’s popular 1982 arc where Logan travels to Japan.
We’ve seen a variety of set photos from production in Australia, featuring Jackman with short hair in a prison camp, and with very long hair and a grizzly beard on the streets of an Alaskan set, but the following image is the first official release from the studio and the first to see Wolverine wielding his Adamantium claws.
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The colors, background and even the less bulky and more toned Hugh Jackman are a reflection of Jackman’s and Mangold’s attempt to make The Wolverine stand out – visually and from a story perspective – as something different not only from Origins, but from the franchise. From Jackman himself:
“With an all-new cast and setting it in Japan, it’s going to give us a whole new visual aesthetic.”
“The approach to character means we won’t be overloaded with mutants and teams and the like, so it’ll be more character-based. I think in many ways it will feel like a completely different X-Men film.”
The story of The Wolverine follows Logan who, without his memories of the past, ends up in Japan and falling in love with a woman from a powerful family who’s meant to marry someone else. Violence ensues and Jackman will find himself at odds against the Silver Samurai. Join in our fun discussion on Jackman’s evolving hairstyle and physique in the X-Men series and let us know of your expectations for the film.
The Wolverine is directed by James Mangold off of Mark Bomback and Christopher McQuarrie’s screenplay. It stars Hugh Jackman, Svetlana Khodchenkova, Will Yun Lee, Brian Tee, Hiroyuki Sanada, and Rila Fukushima.
The Wolverine hits theaters July 26, 2013. X-Men: Days of Future Past hits theaters on July 18th, 2014.
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Source: Fox
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lets hope the sequel is better then origins
Does anyone else other than me find it hilarious that Hugh Jackman’s abs are the subject of the headline for this article?
Also, the index finger claw on his left hand seems to start higher on his hand than the rest for some reason.
index finger?
Belize, no – index claw. He’s not talking about the fingers.
I think they start the same – it’s just darker/less reflective in the middle one, and the angle is too sharp to properly see the pinky claw (lol – “pinky claw”)
The one by his index finger. The one closest to his thumb.
He looks smaller and more fit cut this time. Reminds me of his look in the first x men film.
Anyway I enjoyed origins. Wasn’t great but enjoyable. Hope this is good. Can’t WAITTO see a trailer. Wolverine is a favorite of mine.
Looks kinda pre rendered to me :/
I’m still not sure what I’m supposed to think about the Japan setting. Wolverine for me is the archetype of an American bad ass. Wearing a leather jacket, driving a Harley, smoking cigars, drinking Whiskey… I think he should get a movie setting that fits all that. Japan is not it.
It’s based on the comics. Wolverine did get away to Japan for a while and it was there he learned how to control his “berserker” nature (and got married… briefly). It’s also where he learned how to be such an efficient fighter (I mean, being a Weapon X experiment only really gave him claws and an unbreakable skeleton, it didn’t teach him how to fight).
Besides, Wolverine’s actually Canadian.
Ah, see, I didn’t know that. Let’s expand it to North American bad ass, then.
@TheLostWinchester: That’s one of my favorite comments by far!
But that all was shown in Origins, more or less.
Now let’s try something different, I’m for this.
American bad ass? The guy is canadian for christ sakes!
Never read the comic and it wasn’t made entirely clear in the movies, if I recall correctly.
He actually says “I’m Canadian” in X-Men Origins: Wolverine when Striker tells him to join him out of national pride.
Now that you mention it… great, now I feel like an idiot.
Yes he maybe Canadian but have all the attributes of an American have you ever seen any Canadian wearing leather jackets, riding Harley’s etc as TheLostWinchester mentioned?
The Frank Miller/John Byrne Japan story arc is what helped make Wolverine popular in the early 80′s. It predates all of the retcon stories that everyone else came along and did over the last thirty years, and was probably the least convoluted portion of the characters development.
That said I hope they are somewhere near the target with this movie, I still have the taste of whatever that was with Jean Grey/Phoenix in X-3 in my mouth. Not to mention the unneeded cameos/Easter-eggs in Origins.
I feel like Twentieth Century Fox needs to just give it up, let Marvel have the rights back and REBOOT Wolverine into the MCU.
They have yet to make a memorable X-men movie for any other reason other than the fact that they are mediocre at best..
I feel the SAME exact way, minus having Wolverine in MCU.
Watching the X-Men trilogy (excluding First Class), it does seem mediocre and uninspiring, x2 wasn’t an AMAZING film, or even a mediocre film. It was just blan
I disagree I thought Xmen2 and Xmen firstclass were some of the best super heroe movies out there. Xmen1 and 3 were okay. As for the wolverine origins movie….I just pretend it didn’t happen.
X-Men should be in it’s own universe. It just needs a proper reboot, away from First Class & Singer.
X-men first class is better than any MCU movie in my opinion.
The claws look like a somewhat bad Photoshop job. I thought that Jackman was going for a bulkier look, or maybe that was just Aronofsky idea. Looks like he has gone with the leaner look. He still looks awesome, but maybe he’s just found it harder to put on muscle now at his age. It’s probably easier to cut down the fat than bulk up the muscle, especially if he was already maintaining a good amount of musculature.
The whole picture looks like a Photoshop job. Just look at the flying dust at the bottom of the (full size) picture.
Since it’s a poster of course it’s photoshopped but the body isn’t too far from what we saw in the 70 beach photos on JustJared a couple days ago.
Didn’t he say at some point that he was going to put on muscle mass for the role? Instead he looks leaner than usual here, which frankly puts him farther off character than he already was, in my opinion.
I enjoyed “Origins” and thought Lynn Collins gave a great performance — I hope her character isn’t really dead.
Apparently this movie is about Wolverine’s sbattle to overcome the veins from taking over his body. A suspense thriller.
The trouble with photos nowadays is everybody knows a little about photoshop and is now an expert.Yes the veining is a bit much but I have seen recent pics of Jackman and he is really buff. For some reason he looks leaner here.Japan is the perfect setting for this film and I hope it exceeds expectations…
good comment ! agreed !
I’m tall and very lean like Jackman. And I’ve put around 25 pounds of muscle on at the gym over the years. You have me workout (and especially in a really warm environment) and my veins will pop out like crazy. I seriously doubt they’ve Photoshopped those veins, because they don’t have to do that with Jackman. It’s really just being a lean, muscular person that gets that look.
In any of these roles, these guys are pumping iron right up until they call action to make the muscles are as big as possible. I’d imagine he’s doing the same with these photos.
They’re finally getting it.Don’t worry about sequels. Just tell us individual stories with the characters.
Picture makes him look like a bad*** i’m super excited for this one. I think Origins had some good action but even the action scenes looked like cartoons and of course the story could have been a thousand times better but the problem is that its wolverine he has so many different pieces to his origin and all are so great its hard to choose, so they just tried to mix all of them together and it became kinda a mess. But i think that theyre learning from that in this one this one i’m sure will be brilliant
he looks just on this pic less muscular,but on the prison camp pics you can see that he beefed up. and it´s the anatomy of his body and masses ,he can´t build muscles like a less tall man.
Winstrol and clomid stack? He looks savage. Glad to see someone so dedicated to the physical nature of the roll. That was a huge let down, among other things, with the Singer version of Superman a few years ago… He just looked so weak. I have a feeling this is going to be the first truly epic X-Men property film.
I can’t wait next to Batman, Xmen is my next fave comic and I love Wolverine!! I love all of the Xmen films but Wolverine Origins was my fave!!
Great, a tall and lean wolverine…can’t wait to see what random powers are dished out to silver samurai….
I think he’ll get Teleportation but be as pathetic as Kestrel was in Origins.
Hopefully he actually wears clothes in the movie.
I really don’t want to sit through 2 hours feeling that I should be at the gym instead.
Lol! I would be eating popcorn then slumping my head in my shoulders going: I feel like such a fat@$$…:-(
-i was many things at many places. an chronicly ill child named james howlett. a killer with the name weapon x. known as wolverine. but here(japan),here i had become a man- words of wolverine from the comic -wolverine logan-.
He looks like the wolverine, circa. uncanny x-men comic post-inferno, pre-x-tinction agenda, say 244-270. He ran around with his shirt off alot, especially when he and havok had a road trip to mexico in the beautiully illstrated meltdown. this photo is a bit marc silvestri wolvie and a little jim lee style.
man, that issue where the reavers crucify him is simply awesome, 251 if anyone wants a great book.
X men origins was absolutely terrible, it shouldn’t take much to better it.
am i the only person that doesnt like hugh jackmans wolverine? i want some angry almost animalistic guy who is a little burly, short, beefy, crazy phycho path that is killing machine. I dont want someone that has feelings, charming, and isnt really all that rugged. I want a reboot so bad.
Idk Hugh Jackassman always comes off as a jerk. I know Wolvy can be a little snappy but Hugh annoys the heck out of me.
i want to lick those abs
It just tickles my fancy to know that one of the most violent, animalistic, and brutal characters in comics is a Canadian.
FOX makes X movies like a baker who crafts a beautiful multi-layer cake with fancy elaborate decorations, then drops it on the way to the presentation table and kicking it a few times while clumsily attempting to pick it back up before placing it back down like a sack of potatoes.
Hugh Jackman has yet to capture the full character of Wolverine. That’s sad because hes played him in five movies.