After almost two decades spent waiting to see Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine unleashed, Logan co-writer and director James Mangold is finally giving the fans what they want.

The third – and final – entry in the standalone series brutally reinvents the Marvel character – and Mangold says it’s a fitting end for the X-Men’s most famous character.

“We wanted to deliver on the action that I think Wolverine fans have been longing for,” Mangold tells the Sun down the line from New York City. “By making a movie for adults with an R rating, we were liberated from creating a movie that would appeal to nine-year-olds.”

Jackman has played the adamantium-clawed hero nine times since starting in 2000’s X-Men. But he wasn’t interested in revisiting the character again in a solo movie unless Mangold (who directed 2013’s The Wolverine) could promise a different movie-going experience.

“We wanted to do something that was closer to a western,” Mangold says.

“So I wrote a 50-page treatment for a story about Logan on the run with Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart), who is suffering from a degenerative brain disease. Onto their doorstep comes this young girl, Laura... That evolved into an idea Hugh really responded to.”

Before he jetted back to Los Angeles, we caught up with Mangold to chat about the future of superhero films, thinking outside the box and why Deadpool was a game-changer.

Logan finds Wolverine on the run with Professor X. Why did you not include Magneto and make it a trio of old timers?

He didn’t fit in. Anyone could ask why I didn’t include any one of the X-Men... I’m not of the mind to keep throwing in characters because people are asking about them.

Thematically, this film shares very little DNA with prior X-Men films. What were the influences?

Unforgiven; Shane; The Cowboys; The Gauntlet; The Outlaw Josey Wales; Paper Moon; The Bad News Bears; Taxi Driver; Little Miss Sunshine. One thing I loved was how in the ‘70s there were movies that involved children, but offered adult content. There are really interesting questions that get asked in those films and I miss them.

How did you and Hugh decide to come back for one last Wolverine movie?

We discussed what it would take for us to do another one and for us it had to be something that was out of the sandbox. We wanted to make a film that was more independent in flavour... And I wanted to make a film with less artificiality in the effects. I wanted our chief special effect to be emotion and feeling as opposed to just spectacle.

The film is dark and violent. Is what we’re seeing in Logan thanks to Deadpool’s success last year?

I’m sure Deadpool was a part of it. Deadpool hadn’t been released yet, but it was in the can and I think Fox was optimistic about it. But you have to give Fox some credit. They’re sitting through these movies as well and they’re aware of the arms race they’re in with other studios to make films that are more spectacular... they recognize that there is some logic in trying to find another way.

Logan becomes a father-figure to a young girl who shares his mutant abilities. Will we see a spinoff focusing on X-23, aka Laura?

That would be interesting. Dafne Keen’s a remarkable young actress. But for me, making a film is two years of my life from beginning to end at minimum. So I want to make sure it’s a story I’m really interested in telling. Having said that, she’s a remarkable talent and it’s a very interesting character.

Logan takes place in 2029 and the X-Men are all dead. Did you worry about contradicting the future X-Men films?

Why does it have to be part of anything? Why can’t it just be a movie? Why can’t it just be a wonderful story about this character? I did take some care not to contradict or trip on things that have been referenced elsewhere. But my point is, what’s the upside for us fans of movies and comic books of pointing out when something steps outside the lines? Is that to our advantage or is that to the studio’s advantage? That didn’t happen to Frank Miller. No one cried blaspheme when he wrote The Dark Knight Returns. When Joe Kubert took over X-Men, no one said, ‘Why are you drawing in this way?’ When (X-Men scribe) Chris Claremont wrote a story that was new and fresh, no one questioned it. That’s because comic book fans understand that part of what makes their mythology so exciting is that their characters are constantly being investigated and reinvented and new avenues are being carved out.

After Logan, there are six more superhero films coming this year. Do you think we’ll see more mature approaches to comic book characters?

My hope is that each new filmmaker that takes on one of these superhero movies gets a chance to express themselves in their own way. A lot of fans and press and film execs get very involved in this idea of universe-building. But what is the ultimate goal of this universe-building? Is it to make a movie that’s nine hours long that you can sit through like some mini-series? Each movie becomes less of a movie and more of a sales pitch for the next movie, so it’s kind of a subscription service where you’re not complete until you’ve seen everything. In reality, we should be trying to make a credible movie that stands on its own.

Twitter: @markhdaniell

MDaniell@postmedia.com