‘Logan’ Director Says His Contempt For Superhero Films Made It Better

It's no secret that superheroes are everywhere you look these days. The world may not have any X-Men icons protecting it, but Hollywood has put the hundreds of comic book characters in the line of fire. With so many adaptations out there, the phenomenon of hero fatigue is growing daily.

However, for James Mangold, the man says his general dislike of superhero films is what made Logan such a good movie.

During a recent chat with The Hollywood Reporter, the director admitted his contempt for the genre made Logan better.

"I think I have a kind of healthy contempt for this kind of film. Even the genre," Mangold told the site.

"I tried to bring with it a kind of jaundiced eye about formula that we've gotten really in the habit of delivering on, and trying to deliver a picture that offers some of the same sense of wonder and imagination that these films tend to offer, but doing so in a way where it's less about fetishizing costumes and equipment and CG effects and more about character."

In the past, Mangold has stressed his wish for Logan was for it to avoid superhero tropes seen in MCU or DC Extended Universe flicks. The gritty, R-rated project honed in on characters more so than action sequences, something which the director told Flicks in the City was an intentional move.

"Spectacle is not enough," Mangold explained.

"The thing that we're trying to differently is trying to invest in character," Mangold said. "The fact is that a lot of these movies are a collection of set pieces of action with very short connective things basically explaining how we go from action piece A to action piece B. We wanted to make a movie that's really a drama. If you cut out the action, what you'd have is a powerful drama about interesting character. Whether that makes us different or not, I'll leave others to judge but I tihnk it was our goal to make a movie that earned its audience from feeling real. Really feeling human or feeling intimate."

Logan currently has an 87.5 ComicBook.com Composite Score, the second highest ComicBook.com composite score of any comic book movie. Logan also has a 4.48 out of 5 ComicBook.com User Rating, making it the highest rated comic book movie ever among ComicBook.com Users. Let us know what you thought of Logan by giving the film your own personal ComicBook.com User Rating below.

Logan is now available in home media. Upcoming X-Men movies include The New Mutants, opening April 13, 2018, Deadpool 2, opening June 1, 2018, X-Men: Dark Phoenix, opening November 2, 2018, and Gambit, opening February 14, 2019.