‘Logan’ Director James Mangold: “Spectacle Is Not Enough”

In an interview with Flicks and the City 2, director James Mangold expounded on the intention behind Logan, the third Wolverine film and Hugh Jackman’s final turn as the clawed mutant after 17 years and nine appearances.

Beyond being “an attempt to bring an end to Hugh’s [Jackman) amazing performance as Wolverine,” Mangold said the ambition was to make it an “adult film, a movie for grown-ups . . . a grown-up drama that also features intense action.” Instead of mass appeal, he said they’re paving new roads in the superhero movie sphere, noting “spectacle is not enough” to move people emotionally and the aim of Logan was to do exactly that.

“I think the biggest challenging part is being confident because so many of these other films have more money, frankly, and more spectacle. To being confident in believing that a movie like this can function on the power of drama first, instead of having some supervillain or planets colliding, that the movie first and foremost, its dramatic engine is running the emotional relationships between the characters . . . the thing we’re trying to do differently is trying to invest in character.”

The Logan director said the goal was to make the movie “real and intimate” and an early viewer told him that he felt like he could run into this version of Wolverine on the street. Hopefully he’d handle that encounter better than me.

Logan hits theaters March 3.

Source: Flicks and the City 2