With X-Men: Apocalypse set to wrap up that particular trilogy and Hugh Jackman looking set to bid farewell to Wolverine, Fox are looking for different ways to keep the franchise going. That obviously includes solo outings for characters like Deadpool and Gambit, but looking ahead a little further than that, Josh Boone’s New Mutants is also on the way.
We have no idea about the approach being taken for that release, but producer Simon Kinberg did offer an update on where things currently stand with it in a recent interview:
“I don’t know what the production plan is. Like with all of these things, we have to get the script right. That’s the most important part of it, and they’re just working on the first draft now, but the hope is that we’ll shoot it soon. And Josh has been game with this and gave us this incredibly elaborate presentation about New Mutants. He’s a huge comic book fan and grew up loving and reading specifically New Mutants, so he came with a whole movie presentation where he laid the film out and it was really cool.”
As for the next Wolverine movie, Kinberg had another fairly vague update to offer, but things are certainly sounding good for Hugh Jackman’s final outing as the beloved mutant:
“We’re pretty close to a script that everyone’s excited about, and I don’t know when the start date is, but we won’t start until it’s ready to shoot. What Hugh said to you is the attitude we all have—myself, Lauren Shuler Donner, the studio, [director] James Mangold, Hutch Parker—all of us, feel like this is six or seven or eight (depending on how you count) movies in the making, and there are few characters in the history of cinema who have cast as big a shadow as Wolverine, so to tell the final chapter of that story, it has to be the best, and it has to have a mythic quality to it. So we have to get it right, and I think we will, and my experience working with Jim Mangold, I’ve been extraordinarily impressed with him. He’s just a really great storyteller; he’s incredible with character. Really diligent, just a special talent. I have very high hopes for that movie.”
This matches up with recent comments from Jackman, as he’s made it clear that he won’t officially sign on to star in the next Wolverine until he’s 100% happy with the script (you can’t blame him for that after X-Men Origins: Wolverine). Whether or not it’s going to be able to meet that 2017 release date remains to be seen at this stage, but chances are it will based on these remarks.
With Old Man Logan expected to be the basis for The Wolverine 3, expectations from fans are high, so it’s important that Fox doesn’t drop the ball on the franchise, especially as it will be Jackman’s goodbye as the fan-favourite hero.