LOGAN.

THE LAST SOLO WOLVERINE

WHY MANGOLD AND JACKMAN WANTED A DIFFERENT TONE

Mangold said in February 2017 that neither he nor Jackman wanted to make another Wolverine film unless it was really different, and that the quality they most wanted to change was tone. The first trailer, released in October 2016, looked unlike any earlier X-Men film: an older, weathered Logan, a film set in the future, and a line saying mutants are gone.

The R rating was part of the plan. In December 2016 Mangold told a footage screening that Jackman had taken a salary cut so the film could be rated R. He has said that if he and Jackman could get an R, they would have the freedom to make an adult film, without the pressure to sell toys.

SHANE, UNFORGIVEN AND OLD MAN LOGAN

A WESTERN WITH CLAWS, AND A STORY ABOUT WHAT LOGAN FEARS

Mangold has said that Shane was foundational for the film, calling it brutal but deeply felt, and he pointed to Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven as another model. In a separate interview he said he wanted a film in the spirit of Walk the Line or Girl, Interrupted, where the plots are simple, and that he took the Old Man Logan comic as a visual starting point but not as a story.

He has also said that he asked what Logan fears most, and settled on dementia, which put Charles Xavier’s condition at the centre. In his telling, the film confronts Logan with love and intimacy rather than a villain or a planet-sized threat. When the screenplay was nominated for an Oscar, he described the aim:

“about what he fears most, and that’s not the end of the world or his life, but intimacy.”

James Mangold, on Wolverine’s last chapter, January 2018

He has also described a reversal of the old dynamic: Logan is now the paternal leader of a small group and responsible for everyone’s safety, while he looks after an ailing Xavier.

A FAMILY OF THREE

JACKMAN, STEWART AND A FILM DEBUTANT AS LAURA

Patrick Stewart’s Professor X is near the end of his life, and the cast also includes Boyd Holbrook and Stephen Merchant. The screenplay is credited to Mangold, Scott Frank and Michael Green.

Dafne Keen, who plays Laura, was born in Madrid in 2005 and was about 11 or 12 when the film was shot. Casting director Priscilla John said Keen had an innocence and a vulnerability. In a 2025 interview, Keen recalled a first audition that went badly after nerves got to her, then asking to try again and correcting the Spanish in the script. The role won her an Empire Award for Best Female Newcomer.

A FESTIVAL PREMIERE AND A BIG OPENING

BERLIN FIRST, THEN $88.4 MILLION IN THE US

The film had its world premiere on 17 February 2017 at the Berlin International Film Festival, out of competition, with Jackman, Stewart, Keen and Mangold there. Jackman said he was presenting it knowing it was the last time he would play the role, and Mangold calling it “not a movie for kids.” Jackman said the border scenes were in the film before the political debate about a wall.

It reached US cinemas on 3 March 2017, with the Deadpool short No Good Deed attached to the start. Estimates on 5 March put the opening at $85.3 million, the biggest of 2017 so far. The final opening-weekend figure was $88,411,916, and the film went on to earn about $614 million worldwide.

THE REWATCH

A 93% CRITICS SCORE, AN OSCAR NOMINATION AND A BLACK-AND-WHITE CUT

Rotten Tomatoes lists a 93% critics’ score from 429 reviews and a 91% audience score, and its consensus says Jackman “makes the most of his final outing as Wolverine” in a violent but thoughtful film. Metacritic gives it 77 from 51 critics. On 23 January 2018 the screenplay was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, a first for a superhero film.

In May 2017 a black-and-white version, Logan Noir, reached select theatres for one night and home video that month. Mangold said he took many black-and-white photographs during production and thought the film’s settings and characters looked striking in monochrome.

In the Marvel Marathon it sits in the Marvel movies in release order guide directly after Doctor Strange and directly before Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. In the X-Men movies in order guide it follows No Good Deed and comes before The Gifted Season 1.