Logan Screenwriter Explains The Surprise Villain

SPOILERS For Logan Follow

Logan hit theaters this weekend and is dominating the box office. The R-rated sendoff to Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine featured a surprising villain created specifically for the film.

After the tease at the end of X-Men: Apocalypse, many fans expected Mister Sinister to be the villain of Logan, and when Richard E. Grant joined the film’s cast as an evil scientist type many assumed he would be playing Nathaniel Essex.

That turned out not to be the case, though Grant did play the film’s villainous mastermind, Zander Rice of Alkali Transigen. Where Rice was the brains of the operation, Donald Pierce (Boyd Holbrook) and his cyborg Reavers provided the enhanced muscle.

Up Next: Where Are All The Mutants In Logan?

However, Rice and Pierce had a secret weapon. Laura (Dafne Keene) and the other children at Transigen were part of the X-23 program, a nod to Laura’s codename in the Marvel Comics Universe. What isn’t revealed until late in the film was that Transigen had moved onto the X-24 program, which meant cloning Wolverine without instilling a sense of humanity in the new being. X-24 only knew rage and combat, and operated on animal instinct and was practically feral, only obeying Rice’s commands.

X-24 is responsible for killing Professor X in Logan and is ultimately defeated by Logan and an adamantium bullet fired by Laura. Having Jackman’s “Old Man Logan” fight a younger version of himself seems like a risky play for a big budget film, something writer Scott Frank says he and director James Mangold were aware of.

“It was an interesting thing — for him to be confronted with himself,” Frank tells The Hollywood Reporter. “It reminds him of what he once was. He was not a good guy. But we didn’t want to make a meal out of it. You have to be careful that that doesn’t become the concept through the whole movie because then it does exactly the opposite of what we were trying to do.”

That restraint shows in Logan, as X-24 doesn’t overstay his welcome and the film keeps its focus on the relationship between Logan and Laura.

Logan currently has an 88.46 ComicBook Composite score, the second-highest ComicBook Composite score of any comic book movie, and a 4.71 out of 5 user rating, making it the top rated of all comic book movies among ComicBook.com readers. Let us know what you thought of Logan by rating it below.

In Logan, 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.

Logan is directed by James Mangold, who co-wrote the screenplay with Scott Frank and Michael Green, from a story by Mangold, and also stars Patrick Stewart, Richard E. Grant, Boyd Holbrook, Stephen Merchant and Dafne Keen.

Logan is now playing in theaters.

More Logan:

• Soundtrack Has A Marvel Easter Egg
• Easter Egg References Classic X-Men Villain
• X-Force Character makes Surprise Debut

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