NOBODY IN THE THEATER WOULD KNOW THE DIFFERENCE.
That’s essentially the sentiment shared by Mark Millar, the original writer for Old Man Logan. What’s Old Man Logan ? It’s a essentially a buddy-cop/road trip story in which Wolverine is called out of retirement for an adventure and is joined by an old, and blind, “Hawkeye” who insists on driving Wolverine across country. The rest of the story is negligible which is exactly what Millar thinks if the story is adapted into the final Hugh Jackman led Old Man Logan story.
The original story encompassed characters from all over the Marvel universe including non-Fox characters like Venom symbiot dinosaurs, Hawkeye, Red Skull, A few Hulks and more which is a big clear “no-no” as far as film rights are concerned and Millar goes on to some specifics on how to side-stop all of those issues and insert more X-characters instead:
“They’re not important to the story. The way I worked that thing is I actually structured it as, I broke it down mechanically – I figured out going from this part of America to that part of America and what he would encounter along the way, and then I added in the adversities later. Basically Wolverine doing The Road movie is the important thing and he has a friend [a blind Hawkeye] with him. But that friend could be Cyclops and he could be blind by the fact that his ruby-quartz visor is broken and he has to keep his eyes closed the whole time and everything, but still insists on driving the car they’re crossing America with. There’s lots of stuff. Instead of the Hulk, you could have the Blob or something.”
I agree with the guy! For the most part if non-comic fans are even remotely aware that something has changed it’s because they overheard their friends/co-workers who love comics bitching about it in a moment of weakness and frustration. The reaction is typically observed, possibly noted, and then contemplated if the outburst is distracting enough to escalate to an authoritative figure to intervene. Outside of that nobody would think twice about the change like with Will.I.Am being forced on the public in a prior Wolverine movie or Deadpool initially being… whatever the fuck this is.
I like that Millar has been overseeing Fox’s comic book properties and generally think that despite how disappointing they can be to the casual comic book fan that they’re still pretty fun movies. These films simply can’t please everyone and always draw some disappointment no matter what but overall they have their own tone and approach that’s been pretty entertaining for well over a decade.
There’s still no official confirmation that this is the direction of the film but since Hugh Jackman took my advice and decided to retire from the character I hope he goes out on a high note.
That’s all for now.
Source: Collider
