Between the R rating and the amount of goodwill surrounding Hugh Jackman’s ninth and final performance as Wolverine, Logan is in many ways comparable to Tim Miller’s rip-roaring Deadpool movie of last year.
The connective X-Men tissue also plays a part, of course, but perhaps more than anything else, each standalone pic can be identified as a true passion project in every sense of the word. It took Ryan Reynolds years to sway Fox’s stance on the Merc With a Mouth – that leaked test footage certainly helped force the issue – and Reynolds and the creative team had their loyalty rewarded quite handsomely with a record-breaking box office return, a handful of award nominations, and Deadpool 2.
For Logan, it’s a little different – having played the part of Wolverine for so long, Hugh Jackman is primed and ready to don the claws one last time for a movie that is arguably shaping up to be the most faithful adaptation of the character yet. It’ll be rated R, much to the delight of long-time fans, and we now understand the Aussie actor actually accepted a paycut to effectively seal the deal.
News comes by way of a Logan Q&A in which director James Mangold revealed that Jackman renegotiated his earnings because “he wanted to do an R-rated movie.”
Mangold said that Hugh Jackman took a salary cut because he wanted to do an R-rated movie.
— Eric Vespe (@EricVespe) December 11, 2016
Logan is due to bring the curtain down on Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine career on March 3, 2017 and at least based of early reactions, James Mangold’s threequel will be every bit as brutal, stark and gritty as the marketing campaign has led us to believe.