'Logan' Director James Mangold Just Explained Why Hugh Jackman's Wolverine Was Killed Off
Hugh Jackman's much-loved take on X-Men mutant Wolverine came to an end in 2017's Logan, a film which saw the famous character pass away peacefully after completing one final mission.
The decision to kill off such a huge character was a shock to some fans but the film's writer and director James Mangold has now revealed that it was a surprisingly easy decision to depict Logan / Wolverine's final days.
Speaking to ComicBook.com ahead of a quarantine watch party of Logan, he said that the process was "a lot less of a committee than you'd think".
"It was really Hugh and I at first," he said. "It seemed logical, that if it were going to be his last film, that he's either going to ride off onto the horizon or die, that you need to have some kind of curtain on his story. That's a logical assumption, right?
"But the reason the choice was at our feet was because you needed the sense of closure. You needed some sense of an ending if you were going to end, if you were dealing with the legacy of Hugh's many performances and many films, and trying to set this part in some definitive way."
Killing off such a massive character is a pretty big deal but Mangold revealed that studio Fox was surprisingly on board with the idea when it was pitched.
"Frankly, even the studio didn't even have nervousness about it, because it felt like an event," he said. "It gave the movie, on a simple level, the reality that while it may not feature as flamboyant or expensive action as some other movies, that the must see of the movie was going to be because it would be the end of a legend."
Actor Jackman has previously suggested that his exit from the role doesn't necessarily mean that we'll never see the character of Wolverine again in some capacity, saying that he thinks "the character will go on."
"Someone else will play it, for sure," he said – although Logan producer Hutch Parker has said that he doesn't "foresee anything in the near future with regard to that", adding that "the idea of casting someone else as Wolverine is just not something I can think about".
For now then we'll just have to be content with our slightly weepy memories of Jackman's Wolverine.
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