'Wolverine 3' Will Be The Most Personal Film Yet

If you're into The Wolverine franchise and all the things it represents — namely, a chance to shamelessly objectify the muscular form of Hugh Jackman, Marvel movie excitement, and incredibly elaborate backstories — then today is your day, my friend. Not only did we get a Wolverine 3 release date and film poster but we also know the Wolverine 3 's title: Logan. So far, all the information suggests that this may be Wolverine's most personal outing to date. These details come to us courtesy of director James Mangold, who directed the first Wolverine solo film The Wolverine as well as the ultra critically-acclaimed Johnny Cash movie Walk The Line.

Mangold tweeted both the poster along with its release date — "3-3-17." Which means we're less than six months away from filling up on popcorn and our own personal Santa Claws, Jackman. The director was clearly feeling generous, because then he went on to tweet a still of the second page from the screenplay, a page that suggests that the film will both be cheekily meta (referencing the absurd conventions of superhero movies, like the way characters survive incredible falls) and deeply personal all at once. It looks incredibly fun, but don't take my word for it. Press your face up against your laptop screen and read for yourself:

Looks great, huh? And while the postmodern and personal strands seem as if they'd be in opposition, they seem to feed into each other. A film in which characters can actually die is a film where we emotionally invest in the characters. This more personal take on the Wolverine universe is amplified by the poster:

Our first clue that it's going to be a more intimate look at Wolverine than we're accustomed to is the film's name, Logan. While the character Wolverine was originally born James Howlett to a rich farm-owning couple, we discover that he is actually the illegitimate son of the Howletts' groundskeeper, Thomas Logan. After committing an act of violence and fleeing to a mining colony, he adopts the name Logan to acknowledge his origins. Thus, by giving the movie this name, it suggests the movie may be doing a deep-dive into the character's biography.

It seems fitting that for Hugh Jackman's final outing as Wolverine, that the franchise is upping the ante and giving us a more in-depth look into one of the most nuanced and interesting of the Marvel superheroes.

Images: 20th Century Fox