Wolverine

I interviewed Ryan Reynolds not long ago and asked him a classic fanboy question:  “Deadpool versus Wolverine, who wins?” “Deadpool could beat Wolverine any day. I know it, you know it. Hugh Jackman knows it.” Reynolds worked with Jackman, of course, in “X-Men Origins: Wolverine,”  and though it didn’t really go so well for Reynolds on screen — Deadpool, you might recall,  got his head chopped off — that didn’t sour the actor’s view of the movie star in the film’s title role. “Hugh is a great guy. He’s a very classy human being. He sets the bar for being classy in Hollywood. It’s almost mayoral, his approach to Hollywood. It’s as much his job to sign an autograph or take a photo with a fan as it is to blow people away with his performance on screen. He could host a master class on how […]

The U.S. may be far behind pirate kings like India, Sweden and China (though they’re cracking down) but that doesn’t stop some of us from trying! Gilberto Sanchez, charged by an L.A. grand jury with illegally uploading “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” to the Internet before its theatrical release, was arrested today on suspicion of violating federal copyright law, authorities said. Read the entire story on L.A. Now – Jevon Phillips RECENT AND RELATED ‘X-Men’ future looks especially uncertain  Hugh Jackman says there’s a lot of Mike Tyson in Wolverine Essay: L.A. Times film critic looks for heroic heart of 2009 ‘Wolverine’ hits $160m worldwide and women are 47% of U.S. audience ‘Wolverine’ review gets Fox blogger Roger Friedman in hot water Wolverine, by the numbers Photo: Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) and Victor (Liev Schreiber) face off in “X-Men Origins Wolverine.” Credit: James Fisher / 20th […]

FOUR FRANCHISES AT A CROSSROADS   Talk about heroic: Four film franchises, one decade, more than $10 billion worth of theater tickets sold. And more than that, in their very best moments, each of these franchises shown above delivered sparkling adventure and escapism for moviegoers. Now, though, with the decade winding down and all four franchises sitting a nice tidy trilogy, the question must be asked: Isn’t three the magic number? Do we really need a fourth movie from any of these aging popcorn enterprises? Clearly, all of them will be written up in the Hollywood history books but right now the indelicate must be asked: “How can we miss you if you won’t leave?” Last week we gave you an in-depth report on this quartet of mega-franchises and their quests for a fourth visit to theaters. We told you how “The Hobbit“ must escape the the towering shadow of “The Lord of the […]

Betsy Sharkey is one of the two film critics at the Los Angeles Times. After surveying the great glut of fanboy fare this year, she got to thinking about the nature of the modern film hero and the inner workings of their characters as well as their appeal. Here’s an excerpt, or you can read the entire piece right here.   This summer’s heroes may go boldly, but in every case, someone has gone many times before: three earlier “X-Men” and “Terminators“; one earlier Michael Bay “Transformers,” a 1984 animated film and the pervasive TV series; and countless iterations of “Star Trek” on every size screen known to modern man. It hasn’t been easy to be the fresh prince this year. Yet on they came in their own distinctive ways. For “Terminator’s” Christian Bale and Sam Worthington, martyrdom drips like sweat from their brows. Others swagger with […]

It turns out Wolverine (or maybe the bare-chested Hugh Jackman) is a hero that women are willing to sit in the dark with — females accounted for 47% of tickets purchased in the U.S. for the mutant movie this weekend. Ben Fritz of the Company Town blog has more early numbers on the opening weekend of “X-Men Origins: Wolverine“:  He’s no Iron Man and no team of mutants, but Wolverine kicked off the summer with a solid $87 million in domestic ticket sales. Add in $73 million from the 101 foreign markets where it opened simultaneously and Fox’s first “X-Men” spinoff grossed $160 million around the globe, according to preliminary estimates from the studio. The opening is almost exactly on par with the second “X-Men” movie, “X2,” which launched on the same weekend in 2003. Given six years of ticket price inflation, […]

  Ben Fritz on the Company Town blog has the lowdown on the earliest numbers for the summer 2009 film season and a certain hirsute mutant who doesn’t do well with airport metal detectors. Fox’s “X-Men Origins: Wolverine,” the first big-budget picture of the popcorn movie season, grossed approximately $35 million on Friday, almost exactly the same as last year’s summer-launching “Iron Man” did on its first day.                    Matching the latter flick’s nearly $100-million opening weekend haul will be difficult, however, given “Wolverine’s” significantly weaker reviews. If audience interest fades as quickly as it did for 2006’s “X-Men: The Last Stand,” which saw a 29% drop in returns from Friday to Saturday, the three-day gross could be as low as $80 million for the spin-off starring Hugh Jackman. “Iron Man,” by contrast, actually increased returns on its second day, presaging […]

The cover of the Calendar section in today’s Los Angeles Times has my interview with Hugh Jackman, who stars in the new film “X-Men Origins: Wolverine.” Below is a longer version of the article (it was trimmed for space issues) so, um, think of this as a director’s cut version for fanboys. I had never met Jackman before and, just as I had heard, the guy is extremely charismatic and engaging. I asked him if it was difficult at all to mock himself during the Oscars ceremony, with all those gags about his stage past and hairy superhero work, and he grinned: “That’s just part of being from Australia. People give you grief, take you down a bit, constantly. You do it to yourself. It’s the way we are.” Hope you enjoy this article. I’m hearing the movie is going to do huge business this week … […]

Los Angeles Times film critic Kenny Turan weighs in on “X-Men Origins: Wolverine,” which he found to be a satisfying and efficient bit of moviemaking that will satisfy casual moviegoers and, most likely, thrill fanboys. Here he is on video…   And here is Turan’s written review of the film…. Whatever you do, you don’t want to make Wolverine mad. First comes that god-awful earth-shattering scream, then those indestructible adamantium claws pop out of his hands, all leading to a display of what insiders call “berserker rage.” Believe me, it’s not a pretty picture. It is, however, a picture we see a lot of in “X-Men Origins: Wolverine,” the fourth movie to allow Hugh Jackman to play the darkly handsome, intense masculine poster boy for Marvel Comics’ favorite band of mutants. This is not the urbane, debonair Hugh Jackman who hosted […]

I interviewed Hugh Jackman last week (I’ll be posting it here tomorrow) and it didn’t even occur to me to ask him if he is secretly gay. I really couldn’t care less. (I also didn’t ask who he voted for in the last election in Australia or what religion he practices.) But, well, people seem interested So here’s someone else asking him about it…again… – Geoff Boucher Wolverine, by the numbers Batman crank-calls Wolverine? Jackman’s late-night Clooney call  Is “X-Men: First Class” headed to screen? Museum mutant: Wolverine in the style of Dali, Picasso and Warhol Marvel is on a mission in Hollywood Wolverine review gobbles up Fox writer  Wolverine premiere may be in your town…or on your hard drive

“The thing about Wolverine,” Hugh Jackman said with a smile, “is that he was such a landmark character in comics. And he’s certainly been a landmark role for me. I owe that character a lot.” The Aussie actor was sitting in his office at Seed Productions on the Fox Studios lot, and on the wall was a framed piece of original artwork featuring Wolverine, the Marvel Comics lone-wolf mutant who stole the show in three “X-Men” films and now gets his own film with the May 1 release of “X-Men Origins: Wolverine.”  181 The issue number of “The Incredible Hulk” that, in 1974, gave the world the first Marvel Comics story starring the mighty mutant Wolverine. 25 The cover price, in cents, of that 1974 issue. 1,600  The price, in dollars, to buy a near-mint copy of “Hulk” No. 181 today.     11.5 The height […]