Hugh Jackson has been talking up the planned sequel to 2009’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine during his publicity tour for Real Steel. You may recall that Darren Aronofsky was originally at the helm for the continuing saga of the Adamantium-coated one with a script which was set in Japan for the majority of the action.
Journeyman director James Mangold is now calling the shots (working from that original script, thankfully) and Jackman has hinted that the two have discussed a plan to cater for an older crowd, alongside a younger demographic of fans.
“James Mangold and I talked about [an R-rated version] and we’re like ‘Look, let’s not put it off the table.’ There’s even talk about us doing two versions, as in finding a way to do both while you shoot it, which could be really cool. But you need to have a really good reason to exclude those fans.”
This is certainly an interesting idea in trying to appease both camps, but its early stages yet, and this could be Jackman (after the abject failure that was ‘Origins’) playing the hype game, and attempting to create some buzz. It’s hard to imagine trying to shoot two version simultaneously, and although Jackman may be hinting more at the violent content here, tonally, you’d think if they were going that way, the whole script would need to be modified slightly too.
Maybe the two need to concentrate solely on making the best film they can, and forget about driving up the claw-slashing carnage. You only need to refer back to Wolverine’s tremendous mansion battle in X-Men 2 to know that his animal side can be released just as effectively in a PG version.
Via Collider
