Wolverine 3: How Old Man Logan Comics Influenced Logan Movie

01/19/2017 09:00 am EST

Logan is a piece of the X-Men movie universe but it stands completely on its own. That was made possible because director James Mangold selected a distant enough future where the events of recent films such as X-Men: Days of Future Past can have much of an effect on Logan.

"It's year 2029 when the movie takes place," Logan director James Mangold told ComicBook.com in an exclusive interview.

Mangold went on to explain his reasoning in more detail -- specifically citing the post-credits scene from X-Men: Days of Future Past as the basis for his decision.

"There's an epilogue scene in Days of Future Past which is 2024, or 2023, something like that," Mangold said. "I just wanted to get far enough past. My goal was real simple: it was to pick a time where I had enough elbow room that I was clear of existing entanglements. Part of the way I think this films stop being fresh (these films being franchise comic book movies) is when you find yourself making essentially a television series with $200 million episodes where you're literally just picking up where the last one left off and you're making a mini-series. Then, it's impossible to do something fresh, meaning essentially you're just a director on the 14th episode of a television show picking up where the last one left off and people are going to be really startled by any discontinuity or changes."

This time around, Mangold hopes Logan will be self-contained and tell an entire story in its run time. It will explore uncharted emotional territories of the X-Men universe by pairing Logan with the little X-23 for a relationship which looks a lot like a father-daughter duo.

"That wasn't the goal here," Mangold said. "The goal here was to somehow make a film that's different: to be a filmmaker myself and go, 'How would I bring myself to this? What would I do if I was starting from scratch? What would I explore? What have I seen not explored?' Not only in the X-Men universe but in comic book movies in general."

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Logan hits theaters March 3, 2017.

While the Old Man Logan comic book could never truly be realized on the big screen without a monumental deal between 20th Century Fox and Marvel Studios allowing characters like the Hulk, Punisher, Daredevil, and Hawkeye to play roles, James Mangold's latest directorial effort certainly appears to be living and breathing in the story's mythology.

Speaking to Mangold at a 20th Century Fox showcase of their 2017 slate of films (which also included Alien: Covenant and A Cure For Wellness), ComicBook.com has learned how Old Man Logan influenced the last movie we'll see Jackman donning the adamantium claws.

"There's a kind of inspiration, an umbrella of inspiration we drew from Old Man Logan," Mangold said. "I think part of it was permission to take the character into a more Clint Eastwood in Unforgiven kind of space. Look at Logan as if he were a Bill Money at the twilight of his career. From there, I think, instead of doing what Mark did in the comic which I think was this picaresque journey with this parade of Marvel characters which we could never even do due to rights issues."

Logan will be a much more personal story focused not only on the titular character but also the immediate relationships surrounding him, according to the director.

"We kind of said 'How can we fold this in on itself and also make a very dramatic film for the character on the inside?'" Mangold said. "And issues of family and fatherhood and, in many cases, in the relationship between Logan and Charles and also, of course, in the relationship between Logan and Laura."

In the near future, a weary Logan cares for an ailing Professor X in a hide out on the Mexican border. But Logan's attempts to hide from the world and his legacy are up-ended when a young mutant arrives, being pursued by dark forces.

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