When Logan finally fades to black, it brings Hugh Jackman’s 17-year run as Wolverine to a close. It is an emphatic and definitive ending, not just to Jackman’s Wolverine series, but also to the X-Men franchise as a whole.
The most jarring line in the new trailer for James Mangold’s increasingly buzzy Wolverine spinoff Logan comes when the gruff mutant informs his young charge, “This is the real world. People die.” He tells her this after seeing one of her vintage X-Men comic books, and informing her that the team’s actual exploits bear little resemblance to what’s on the page. It all sends a clear message: this is a film unlike the solo Wolverine pictures that came before it, distinctive both in its high stakes and self-awareness. It’s a sharply written moment, but the new clip doesn’t linger on it for too long before getting to the good stuff — in this instance, a young girl cutting off an adult man’s hands.
The Wolverine 3 (or 2, if we’re ignoring X-Men: Origins, and we should) hits theaters in about six months, which means we should be seeing a teaser trailer…well, any day now, really. Rest assured, director James Mangold is working hard to deliver the first footage from the upcoming sequel, but until then, Bryan Singer has confirmed a major X-Men villain for Hugh Jackman’s final outing as the iconic superhero.