The Wolverine: Director Wanted Logan to Have "Baggage" From X-Men

While all of the early buzz painted James Mangold's upcoming mutant tentpole film as a prequel to X-Men, it was recently revealed that The Wolverine in fact takes place following the events of X-Men: The Last Stand. Why? Well, Mangold had some explanation for that in an Entertainment Weekly interview today. "It was only to my advantage to set it after the X-Men films because the X-Men had effectively ended at that point," the director said. "A lot of the key characters had died. There was a sense if I'm locating this film not five minutes after the other movie, but a period of time after that last X-Men movie, I can find a Logan who is living separate from the world. He is no longer a member of some superhero team." Which, of course, brings the character back to where he was when Charles Xavier found him, and sets up perfectly to take a story previously set in the past and bring at least elements of it forward into the present. Who says Bryan Singer has a monopoly on monkeying around with X-Men timelines? "Because of some of the themes in the Claremont/Miller saga. I felt it was really important to find Logan at a moment where he was stripped clean of his duties to the X-Men, his other allegiances, and even stripped clean of his own sense of purpose," Mangold explained. "I was fascinated with the idea of portraying Logan as a ronin – the definition of which is a samurai without a master, without a purpose. Kind of a soldier who is cut loose. War is over. What does he do? What does he face? What does he believe anymore? Who are his friends? What is his reason for being here anymore? I think those questions are especially interesting when you're dealing with a character who is essentially immortal." The Wolverine hits theaters on July 26.