THE WOLVERINE - James Mangold Discusses Dark Tone and More

Director James Mangold recently talked to MTV about his highly anticipated new film, The Wolverine. Like many of you, I'm hoping that this ends up being the best vision of Wolverine so far. Mangold discusses the tone of the film revealing they'll be going "a little darker and a little deeper,"  the Japanese setting and influence, and when we can expect to see the first trailer of the film.

On Japanese influence:

There is a significant amount of Japanese spoken in the movie, and the cast is almost entirely Japanese. So there is this wonderful sense of cross-pollination between a very Western character and a far Eastern culture, and I think it's very cool and something we haven't seen so far. I think there is a lot of ways that Japanese film, Japanese fighting, Japanese martial arts have had an effect on this movie. And certainly the movie is dripping with Japanese tradition both cinematically, fighting-wise and philosophically as well.

On Logan's new haircut and separation from the previous movies:

We've given Logan a new haircut, a shorter haircut that I think is a more handsome haircut. The wonderful opportunity for me with this film is that 90 percent of it takes place in Japan, and even though other elements remain constant from the other pictures, namely Hugh Jackman, we kind of got our chance to reboot the tone and go a little darker and a little deeper than they've gone before with this character. That was exciting for me.

On Berserker rage and the violence:

The whole point is not about violence or rating; it's about intensity. I wanted to make a film that in a way captures the intensity of his character. One of the things that has always been a feature of Wolverine in the comics is that he has a berserker rage, that he has anger and some of his abilities are driven by something more primal. Honestly, to get really pissed off — not cute pissed off, not quippy pissed off, not funny pissed off or cigar-chomping pissed off, just pissed off — that can then help drive the fighting, drive the combat. That is interesting for me and then for the character, some of the jet fuel underneath some of the combat in the film.

That all sounds pretty awesome, but I'm sure you're all wondering when we're going to see a trailer that gives us our first real taste of what this movie is going to be like! It sounds like when it is released it's going to just tease us.

I think you always want to put your best foot forward. For me, I'm not the marketing department of Fox, but for my own tastes, less is more. You have a character that's a bit of a given, you know this guy. Hugh is so good in this role. My point of view is 'save as much as you can,' but we will be lifting our skirt and offering a peek or two, certainly in the months to come.

The Wolverine stars Hugh Jackman, Will Yun Lee, Khodchenkova, Hiroyuki Sanada, Hal Yamanouchi, Tao Okamoto, Rila Fukushima, and Brian Tee. It's set to hit theaters on July 26th, 2013, and here's the synopsis...

Based on the celebrated comic book arc, this epic action-adventure takes Wolverine, the most iconic character of the X-Men universe, to modern day Japan. Out of his depth in an unknown world he faces his ultimate nemesis in a life-or-death battle that will leave him forever changed. Vulnerable for the first time and pushed to his physical and emotional limits, he confronts not only lethal samurai steel but also his inner struggle against his own immortality, emerging more powerful than we have ever seen him before.

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