Fox Execs Worried Mature, R-Rated Logan Would Be 'Freakin' Boring'

CBR

By Brett White

Published Feb 15, 2017

The upcoming Wolverine film went to places previous X-Films haven't gone, and that initially worried those in charge at Fox.

As seen in the trailers and clips for "Logan," the upcoming Wolverine solo film will be unlike any other X-Men film we've seen so far. For the first time, Wolverine will appear in an R-rated film, one that doesn't pull any punches when it comes to the carnage wrought by Wolverine's metal claws.

During a Q&A session at Tuesday's Recode Media conference in Laguna Niguel, California, Twentieth Century Fox chairman Stacey Snider spoke to "Logan's" shift in tone towards the extreme and dramatic -- and she revealed that this shift caused some internal drama at Fox among those concerned it would be too dark.

“Inside, there was real consternation about the intensity of the tone of the film,” said Snider, as reported by Variety. “It’s more of an elegy about life and death. The paradigm for it was a Western, and my colleagues were up in arms. It’s not a wise-cracking cigar-chomping mutton-sporting Wolverine, and the debate internally became, isn’t that freakin’ boring?"

Snider said that the opposite was true, however, and the film isn't "freakin' boring." Snider asked, "Isn’t it exciting to imagine Wolverine as a real guy and he’s world-weary and he doesn’t want to fight anymore until a little girl needs him?”

It's definitely hard to imagine anyone worrying that "Logan" might be boring after watching all the trailers for the film, especially the ones that show X-23 in action taking on adversaries twice her size. The visual of a clawed little girl flipping out and cutting into gun toting mercenaries has been a central part of the ad campaign in the time since the first trailer dropped. A new promo for the film even goes behind the scenes of X-23's creation, as masked doctors ready their creation for killing.

Set beyond the events of “X-Men: Days of Future Past,” 2017’s “Logan” is set in the near future following a cataclysmic event that ravaged the mutant race. It will also be Hugh Jackman’s final outing as Wolverine, and will introduce Dafne Keen as the character’s teenage clone X-23.

Directed by James Mangold, written by Michael Green, Scott Frank, James Mangold and David James Kelly, and starring Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Boyd Holbrook, Richard E. Grant, Dafne Keen and Stephen Merchant, “Logan” arrives in theaters on March 3, 2017.