Doing press for Real Steel – which opens tomorrow in the US and next week in the UK – Hugh Jackman has obviously had to field a few questions about his other projects, especially The Wolverine .
Having talked up the script previously, he’s now backing new director James Mangold’s vision for the project.
“The director is going to bring their own voice to it. Jim has done some great movies. Many, many different movies like 3:10 To Yuma ,” Jackman told Moviefone.
Excitingly, it’s another Western that comes to Jackman’s mind when he thinks about The Wolverine .
“We had an image of this movie like The Outlaw Josey Wales , which I love. And he has a really great take on it. Yes, it’s going to be different than Darren [ Aronofsky ]’s version, but I think it’s going to be just as great from what I’ve seen. And he’s doing his tweaks to what is already a very strong script.”
As for Real Steel , did director Shawn Levy put his stamp on that project? After all, the original short story conjures up a much more bleak future.
“[ Shawn ] was very clear from the beginning that we needed to establish what the rules are. In the original script there were robotic dogs in that junkyard scene. So as they’re trying to get out, there’s a whole action sequence. And Shawn said, ‘This is just confusing. You’ve got robotic dogs, but we’re still driving an old truck? We’re not having flying cars, this is not Blade Runner .'”