We liked “X-Men” and “X2,” and with the memory of “X-Men: The Last Stand” behind us, we were sort of optimistic about “X-Men Origins: Wolverine,” but then we saw it, and never wanted to see another Wolverine movie again. But, with a healthy $370 million box office haul, with $190 million of that coming from overseas, a sequel was pretty much inevitable.
Roger Friedman is reporting that Christopher McQuarrie has finished the script for “Wolverine 2” and it’s essentially a Wolverine-in-Japan adventure as has been discussed for several months now.
Guess maximizing those foreign box office bucks doesn’t hurt. Based on a story by Frank Miller and Chris Claremont’s comic book story arc, the film will track Wolverine’s “adventures in martial arts” and will also feature “a love story featuring a Japanese actress.” So “Kung Fu Wolverine”? While those comics were actually quite good, probably the best early Wolverine tales, given the already brutal track record of this franchise, the last thing we want to see is Wolverine hamfistedly adopting “Eastern philosophy and fighting skills.” Nuance has never been a strong point with this franchise.
Despite his popularity, Jackman has never really been a big box office draw on his own in North America, so we get the Far East focus of this film. Filming on “Wolverine 2” will start in January, but Jackman will have his hands full until then. He has the gender-panic comedy “Avon Man” filming next month, “Real Steel” this summer and he’s just finished work on Wayne Wang’s “Snow Flower And The Secret Fan” where he will do a full song and dance number in Chinese.
The Logan-in-Japan story is the one that every single fan wants to see and we can’t blame them. But whether or not they can find a director to capture the raw brutality of the comics — there are fight scenes in it as bloody and on par as Uma Thurman’s showdown with the Crazy 88s from “Kill Bill”— remains to be seen, especially after the highly cartoonish and godawful first “Wolverine” film. Geeks are always willing to forgive though, so we’ll see, but even the easy lays and Harry Knowles’ of the world turned their noses up at installment #1.