Cinefantastique Online

MTV.Com has an interview with Gavin Hood, director of the upcoming WOLVERINE spin-off movie. Hood is rather tight-lipped about details of the film, which will star Hugh Jackman, who played the title role in both all three X-MEN movies; however he did indicate that the film will fill in the back story suggested by flashbacks in the previous films:

“We’re doing more of a prequel,” Hood said of his plans to portray a time expanding on those early flashbacks, up until when Logan first meets Professor Xavier’s crew. “We’re going to tell you a little more about Wolverine before he became involved in the X-Men. Even before he got those steel claws.”

Hood, whose previous credits include the foreign-language Oscar-winner TSOTIS and the upcoming RENDITION with Reese Witherspoon, says that this art house background is not a drawback to his work on a comic book blockbuster:

“As a director who’s always been very interested in human drama and human nature, Wolverine appeals to me because it’s a character who is constantly engaged in a battle to define who he is. You’re dealing with somebody who is engaged in a moral questioning of his own nature. … It’s a grand, operatic debate about human existence over who we are.

“I think the ‘X-Men’ [film] series was an extraordinary and brilliant series, but I think we don’t want to be seen as ‘X-Men 4,’ ” Hood added, separating his flick (and possible sequels) from the blueprints laid out by Bryan Singer and Brett Ratner. “We want to be seen as ‘Wolverine 1,’ and hopefully there will be a series of the ‘Wolverine’ story.”