Hugh Jackman will leave the Wolverine franchise alone – if you guys hate it.
That’s what he told Moviehole – that if audiences don’t go for next year’s X-Men prequel he’ll gladly walk away from the series and forget all about the sequel he’s already developing in his noggin.
”If it’s clear to us on May second or third that that’s gone, then I’ll walk away happily”, Jackman says of the audience appeal in the character. ”I’m not going to flog something – or flog a dead horse, or try and make movies that people don’t really want to go and see. I have no interest in that. Even no matter how much I love the character. So there are many prerequisites.”
And although he’d personally like to do a sequel, he’s not going to do it just for the hell of it.
“There’s a few story lines that are running my head which I think would be really cool, but unless the script is right, then I just don’t see the point in doing it. I’m probably at the point in my career where I don’t need it. And the last thing I want to do is just to push it on people, if it doesn’t warrant a full feature movie.”
And why did Jackman decide to tell Wolverine‘s story?
”Well, after X-Men, there was not, like, a fete accompli that I would do it. We basically got a great script. And I had the script and director. David Benioff, one of the great writers in Hollywood, came knocking at our door. And I went and had a meeting with him, and he told me his idea. And I just went, “That is so brilliant.” Now, I know this character by now, and he is a mad, mad fan of the comic books. He’s not cheap. But he came to us with this idea, which was smart and interesting. And it was also steeped in a deep love of the character, and the comic book history. So I just went, “Okay. There’s a reason to make this film.” I mean, I’d always felt there was a reason, storytelling-wise. Because as good a go as I’d had in X-Men I, II, and III, there was a lot of mystery left. I don’t think – we touched on it in X-Men II. But there were certainly a lot of mystery still left about his origins. I was always a mad fan, in reading the comics, of the Wolverine in Japan saga, which is one of the most famous. But ultimately, we all decided – I think rightly, after seeing the film – that you need to understand the character’s origins, to understand who he is. And to really get it. So that’s what the movie does. It goes right back to him as a kid, basically.”
Credit: Moviehole
