20 facts you might not know about 'Logan'

Hugh Jackman had been played Wolverine for well over a decade by the time James Mangold started working on a treatment for what would become Logan. Once things came together, it was decided that this would be not only the end of the Wolverine trilogy of films that started with the woeful X-Men Origins: Wolverine, but also Jackman’s last film as the character, as well as Patrick Stewart’s last turn as Charles Xavier.

Apparently, Jackman and Mangold, who co-wrote and directed Logan, have been friends for decades. That surely made collaboration easier on Logan. The two spoke extensively about their plans for the film, helping to come up with the story to send Jackman’s Wolverine off into the sun.

When Jackman and Mangold were discussing plans for the film, the actor had a couple specific references in mind. He wanted to make a film in the vein of The Wrestler or Unforgiven.

While Mangold has “story by” credit and is one of the credited screenwriters, the movie does take influence from a classic comic book storyline. That would be the “Old Man Logan” story from 2008, which was written by Mark Millar.

Liev Schreiber played Victor Creed, a.k.a. Sabretooth, in an earlier Wolverine film. There was talk of Sabretooth returning for Logan, and he was even in the script at one point. However, by the time the screenplay was finalized, Sabretooth was out.

Of all things, it was a conversation with Jerry Seinfeld that got Jackman to decide it was time to stop playing Logan. Jackman revealed the story during an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. He asked the comic about his decision to Seinfeld, and Seinfeld explained "not to run yourself dry" and "making sure that you creatively still got something left, which propels you into whatever's next." The actor wanted to stop playing Wolverine before that happened.

Dafne Keen got the role of Laura, the young mutant who has the same powers as Logan and is, effectively, his child. A few other kids auditioned for the role. One of the kids up for it was Millie Bobby Brown, who would go on to play Eleven in Stranger Things, so things turned out just fine for her.

For a lot of the movie, Laura doesn’t talk at all. And when she does talk, it's sparse. This wasn’t the case during the entirety of the writing process. Co-writer Scott Frank says that when he got on board the project, the first draft he saw had a very chatty Laura in it. Frank is the one who pushed for her to not talk much at all to avoid being a typical kid sidekick.

Merchant gives a good performance as the mutant Caliban, but there’s another reason why he was hired. The British actor stands 6’7’’. Mangold liked the dynamic that brought. He’s over six inches taller than Jackman, and of course, Charles in his wheelchair and the young Keen were much shorter than him as well.

Jackman and Mangold wanted to make Logan an R-rated film, which at the time wasn’t really happening in comic book movies. They wanted the freedom to swear and to have as much gore as they chose. In order to get the studio to agree to release an R-rated movie, Jackman had to agree to take a pay cut, which he did.

Casinos are very serious about not allowing kids. In fact, Keen couldn’t shoot any scenes in the casino, and no shooting permit could change that. For those scenes, they either used a green screen to shoot Keen or used a body double who was over 18.

Some actors fluctuate their weight for roles often. Christian Bale seems to do it just for kicks. Stewart, though, had never done it before. However, to play the sick, elderly version of Professor Xavier, Stewart lost 21 pounds.

Stewart lost weight to thin out to play the 90-year-old Charles. Jackman had a different experience. He was eating six meals a day and doing three-hour workouts with a trainer on the regular, starting at four in the morning. Then, anytime he had to be shirtless in the film, he would dehydrate himself for 48 hours to lose water weight. This is commonly done by bodybuilders to give themselves more definition. For the record, Jackman doesn’t recommend it.

In the world of Logan, there are X-Men comics, fictionalized versions of the exploits of the “real” X-Men. However, while these look like vintage X-Men titles, they aren’t. The covers and even the interior pages were made entirely for the movie. All in all, 10 covers were created for Logan.

Charles and Laura watched the Western Shane during the film. This is done because Shane is another movie used as reference for Logan. It also happened to work out quite well. Stewart improvised a bit about Charles remembering seeing the movie in his hometown, which is based on the fact that Shane was one of the first movies that Stewart himself ever saw in theaters.

A black-and-white version of the film called Logan Noir was given a limited theatrical release that also was included on the DVD and Blu-ray combo pack as well. While Mangold always intended to shoot the movie in color, he did also think about how it would look in black-and-white at the same time.

R rating or not, people were interested in seeing Jackman as Logan one last time. The film made $226.3 million in the United States and Canada and $619 million worldwide. At the time, it was the third-highest-grossing R-rated movie ever. On top of that, it surpassed the total box office of its predecessor The Wolverine in only 13 days.

It’s not uncommon for superhero movies to get Academy Award nominations. However, they are usually for Best Visual Effects or what have you. Logan only got one nomination, but it was a significant one. The movie was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay. It was the first superhero film to get a screenplay nomination.

As will happen when somebody walks away from a huge part of their life, Jackman has waffled a bit about never playing Wolverine again. That being said, it comes with a caveat. The actor has said he will only play Wolverine again in a crossover movie with Deadpool.

Mangold was working on a Logan sequel called Laura, and you can probably guess who would have been the star. Then, in 2019, Disney purchased Fox, getting all the X-Men character rights back. Later that year, Mangold said that it was unlikely that Laura would be happening due to the Disney acquisition.