While Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine has been slashing people on-screen for the past 10 years, 20th Century Fox and the directors have kept the blood and gore to a minimum so as to ensure an audience-friendly rating. It makes sense given the budgets and popularity past X-Men films have had, but seeing Wolverine truly ‘unleashed’ would give fans something to look forward to.
While promoting Real Steel Hugh Jackman was asked about The Wolverine, and he said there is talk about shooting both PG-13 and R-rated versions of the film.
From SHH:
“There’s such great temptation to make an R-rated ‘Wolverine’,” he says, “I’ve always felt that. I know a lot of fans would like that. I totally get it. If there was ever a superhero that was going to be R-rated, it’s Wolverine. However, in the last ten years, I’ve also met many, many 12, 13, dare I say 10, 14, 15 year-olds who, for them, Wolverine is not just cool, you see it in their eyes. He’s everything to them. So my thing is — which James Mangold and I talked about — is let’s not put it off the table. There’s even a talk of us doing two versions, as in finding a way for us to do both as you shoot it, which could be really cool. But you need to have a really good reason to exclude those fans.”
I can’t see 20th Century Fox releasing a blood and gore version on the big screen as the rating would be eliminating a big chunk of the potential audience, but a separate DVD/Blu-ray release should definitely be considered.
The Wolverine is expected to start shooting next year under the direction of James Mangold (Walk the Line, 3:10 to Yuma) after Jackman wraps Tom Hooper’s Les Miserables for Universal. The script, written by The Usual Suspects writer Christopher McQuarrie, takes Wolverine to Japan where he falls for a woman named Mariko, the daughter of a Japanese crime lord. It will contain many elements from Frank Miller’s Wolverine storyline from the 1980s.
