James Mangold Talks About His Plans For 'The Wolverine'

I know some are sick of Wolverine and some hardcore X Men fans felt he was too dominant in the 3 X Men movies, but I don't care as I've always been more of a Wolverine fan than an X Men fan and he's my second favourite comic book character after Batman, so as you can imagine his solo movie was a let down.

However it made enough money to get a sequel and give Fox the chance to do justice by the character, and after this summers 'X Men: First Class' and 'Rise of the Planet of the Apes' I remain cautiously hopeful.

James Mangold talked to Indie Wire about his vision for the movie and it sounds great to me, referencing Clint Eastwood's classic 'The Outlaw Josey Wales' and the use of the Yakuza and Ninjas!

Mangold also said he was keenly aware of the conventions of the genre he would be exploring, and felt he's been able to turn it into a more unique story than most other superhero movies demand. "I think part of the reason I'm doing this picture has been because it isn't to me a conventional superhero movie. It isn't an origin story, so I’m freed from that burden, and it also isn’t a save-the-world movie, which most of them are. It’s actually a character piece; I actually think it has more in common with 'The Outlaw Josey Wales' and 'Chinatown,' what we’re doing, than the conventional, 'will Wolverine and his compatriots save the world from this thermonuclear device' question."

Following the success of the first "Wolverine," fans speculated – and in fact hoped - that the second film would examine the comic book story lines written by Chris Claremont, in which Wolverine spent time in Japan. Mangold said that he wants to take advantage of those fish-out-of-water opportunities, and then combine them with storytelling, and of course, action sequences which maximize the influence of the world around the characters. "I think that this movie is much more an intense psychological and action-packed character piece, that’s much more about Logan getting lost in this very unique and insulated world of Japanese culture, gangster culture, and ninja culture," he said. "The fighting is going to be unique because it's all influenced by Japanese martial arts."