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Hugh Jackman took Logan pay cut to ensure final Wolverine film will be R-rated

Hugh Jackman looking extremely miffed in the first trailer for 'Logan'. (Credit: 20th Century Fox)
Hugh Jackman looking extremely miffed in the first trailer for ‘Logan’. (Credit: 20th Century Fox)

Hugh Jackman took a pay cut to ensure his final outing as mutant superhero Wolverine was as bloody and sweary as he and fans have been craving.

James Mangold, who directs Jackman in ‘Logan’, revealed the detail following a screening of 40 minutes of footage at an event in Texas.

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The morsel of information was brought to the world outside the Butt-Numb-A-Thon film marathon (that’s its real name) by Ain’t It Cool writer Eric Vespe. “Mangold said that Hugh Jackman took a salary cut because he wanted to do an R-rated movie,” he tweeted.

How R-rated will the film be? The footage was reportedly very violent, with “full on berserker Wolverine” and “more f-bombs than [‘The Big] Lebowski'”.

Vespe also said the audience was “kinda pissed” after the extended look had concluded, adding that the footage was “refreshing after a couple of cartoony [Bryan] Singer X-films”.

Despite the mixed (sometimes outright negative) feelings many have towards 20th Century Fox’s ‘X-Men’ series, ‘Logan’ has drummed up some serious interest following its first trailer. Said trailer – a fantastic tease set to Johnny Cash’s cover of ‘Hurt’ – showed a very different kind of ‘X-Men’ film featuring an older Wolverine and an older-still Charles Xavier, played by Sir Patrick Stewart.

The R-rating was confirmed in May by ‘X-Men’ producer Simon Kinberg, who told Collider: “[The film] takes place in the future, and as you and others have reported, it is an R-rated movie. It’s violent, it’s kind of like a western in its tone. It’s just a very cool, different film.”

Jackman and Stewart will star alongside Richard E. Grant, Boyd Holbrook, Stephen Merchant and Dafne Keen as Laura Kinney, aka X-23, a clone of Wolverine.

‘Logan’ is set to be released on 24 February, 2017.