The new Marvel movie Logan is the tenth film in Fox's X-Men series, and the third to focus on Wolverine.
Unlike its predecessors, Logan is rated R and the violence is vivid--even relentless. It's set in a desolate future -- a bleak world where only a handful of mutants survive. Professor Charles Xavier, the founder of the X-Men, played by Patrick Stewart, is gravely ill with a degenerative brain disease.
Wolverine, or Logan, spends his days driving a limo near the Mexican border and struggling to care for his old mentor. While Charles Xavier wants Logan to save the next generation of mutants, Logan no longer feels up to the task.
Our guest today is James Mangold, the director and co-screenwriter of Logan. Before he got involved with the X-Men franchise, he had built his career on character-driven dramas including Cop Land, Girl, Interrupted, Walk the Line, and 3:10 to Yuma.
With Logan, Mangold was determined to make something more nuanced than the usual X-Men fare, and he insisted on naming the movie, simply, Logan.
Mangold tells us about fighting franchise fatigue, the worldwide casting search for a young, Spanish-speaking mutant, and why he's taken to Twitter to fight the dark, spoiler-obsessed side of fan culture.