Wolverine and the Terrible, No Good, Very Bad Films

Second only to The Dark Knight Trilogy and The Marvel Cinematic Universe, X-Men is among the most successful superhero film franchises of the 21st century.  The original film was among the opening lineup of what has become a very popular Hollywood genre.  That said, there have been some very noticeable missteps in some of the films and the harshest criticisms are leveled at the Wolverine spin-off films; 2009's X-Men Origins: Wolverine and 2013's The Wolverine.  At face value, this seems a contradiction.  Hugh Jackman, who plays Wolverine, has headlined all the other successful films of the series except one, so why are the films so much weaker with a different supporting cast.  Blame is thrown around to writing, direction, casting and other things, but after some research, I think I've pinpointed the root of the problem to the business management of the series by its studio, 20th Century Fox.

Wolverine's journey to cinematic calamity began in 2005 when Marvel made the decision to produce its own movies.   Up until that point, Marvel had licensed the movie rights of each of its franchises to various studios.  Some of them actually got produced, and most of those flopped (See Daredevil, Elektra, and Ghost Rider).  Marvel had grown to point where it could enter into film production on its own and give their beloved characters a proper onscreen treatment.  The only problem was money.  There was enough to continue publishing their numerous comic titles, but not enough to start up a tent pole blockbuster film.  In order to solve this, the company decided to sell its firstborn children.  They sold the film rights of some of their most well known titles to various studios.  Among those in the sale were Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, the Incredible Hulk, and X-Men.  20th Century Fox bought X-Men and Fantastic Four, Sony bought Spider-Man, and Universal bought Hulk. With money in the bank, Marvel immediately took steps to produce their new Cinematic Universe and opened big with Iron Man.   

The relationship between Marvel and Fox started pretty amicably.  Fox did alright with their first X-Men film and scored a slam dunk with their second.  Even the third, despite its many flaws, did very well financially. But after X-Men III, Fox had written themselves into a pickle.  A clause written the purchase agreement from Marvel had specified that Fox must complete an X-Men film every few years or the rights would revert back to Marvel.  The agreement would renew every time Fox did this, but their film series had capped out as a trilogy, so now what?  With producers at a creative impasse and the clock ticking on losing one of their golden gooses, the executives at Fox needed to buy some time.

A story pitch for X-Men Origins: Wolverine would probably have been very simple; the story of how Wolverine met Colonel Stryker, got his claws, and lost his memory.  There's no doubt it had great appeal to a studio executive looking to greenlight a project quickly.  The story kept their leading man in play, could be mined from scenes in X2, and had a demand with the fans to answer lingering questions.  It was quickly rushed into production to avert Marvel's deadline, not to mention a pending writer's strike, and that's when the problems started.  Scripting wasn't finished by the time filming started which put creative strain on the director and gave the film a very disjointed feel since there wasn't much time to consider the flow of a new scene before filming it.  As a finished product, the film was very unfocused and had obvious seams from multiple stories stitched together.  It did okay financially and was a critical flop, but it gave Fox time to consider future installments for the X-Men series.  Among the ideas discussed were X-Men Origins: Magneto about the team's archenemy, and X-Men: First Class about the first mutants at Xavier's school. 

The rushed production schedule of Origins suggests it was churned out quickly to buy time for the studio to make something else.  A single flop wasn't enough to discourage Fox, and in order to keep Hugh Jackman in play, Wolverine 2 entered development.  First Class was a big hit with fans and general audiences, despite continuity errors in the story.  With a new direction found, a sequel to First Class was also greenlit.  Both projects hit several roadblocks in production, including the loss of directors.  After several meetings, it was eventually decided that the First Class sequel would become Days of Future Past.  Fox was once again bumping into Marvel's deadline and so pushed the stalled Wolverine 2 into production.  Story-wise, it was much farther along than Origins had been, but not by much. Consequently it was dumbed down into an easy, generic, action flick.  Fortunately, Days of Future Past was worth the wait.

It should be clear what conclusion to draw from this chain of events.  20th Century Fox is using the Wolverine films as space fillers to fulfill a quota for the X-Men movie rights while they take the time to produce better ones.  X-Men is the strongest card they hold in the superhero market, since the original Fantastic Four films floundered and bad buzz is already building around the reboot.  I believe Disney's purchase of Marvel soured the possibility of crossover between X-Men and the MCU since they are now competing franchises of rival mega-corporations. Wolverine 3 is scheduled to be released in 2017 and it's been announced that the film will be Hugh Jackman's final performance in the role. With Fox doubling down on the X-Men franchise, we can only hope they've gotten organized enough to make it a worthwhile exit for the character.