LOGAN remains one of the best-reviewed and most talked about movies of the year, and as awards season begins to kick off it finds itself very much in the conversation. What helps matters is that LOGAN doesn’t feel like it belongs to a giant movie universe, even though there is plenty of room for more adventures with the feisty Laura a.k.a X-23 (Dafne Keen). The ending left things open for her, and now director James Mangold is going about exploring where she may end up.
While talking about the impact of the movie for THR, Mangold and other members of the crew talked about the positive reception to the movie, as well as the potential for a Laura spinoff movie. Mangold said that "We're just working on a script," and that Patty Jenkins’ WONDER WOMAN (the other superhero movie in the awards discussions this year) did a lot to prove that audiences want stories like this with female leads:
Patty's success with that film only solidifies more for studios that there's less to fear with a female protagonist. The more that keeps getting hit home, that ends up giving me more space turning around and going, “Well here we are with a female protagonist. That's incredible. And what are we going to do with her?” And that's where we are with that [the Laura script] right now, dreaming.
Back in February, not too long before the release of LOGAN, Mangold said he would “love to see another movie about that character,” and that he would like to be involved in the process of making a Laura-centered movie. Mangold toying with ideas for the script is not a confirmation that 20th Century Fox is giving the go-ahead to make the movie, however. The studio will most likely recast Wolverine (played by Hugh Jackman until this year), and given how LOGAN ended, that could be hard to do if Laura still has a place in the X-MEN Universe. Perhaps the studio has no plans to recast at this time, which could mean letting Laura have her story play out until they do is an option they're open to exploring. As for Jackman's place in the movie, he said he would be involved in no way, but that "I will be lining up on the Thursday night at 10 pm to watch it though. She is just phenomenal."
Whether or not the movie actually is getting made is one thing, but it's exciting to hear that they're toying around with ideas on how to keep the character going. Keen nailed the role and there is so much potential there to explore. Thinking that fans would rather see her disemboweling fools in R-rated fashion than a new Wolverine (at least right now) is not a silly thought, and right now the best move for Fox may be to explore this young character even more and worry about recasting and reboots later.