Interview: Hutch Parker on Wolverine’s Journey to Logan

Hutch Parker became a producer on The Wolverine in 2013. He had long been involved in the studio side at Fox before becoming a part of the X-Men family and franchise. Logan was released in March and has now earned over $600 million at the box office. Directed by James Mangold, it’s said to be Hugh Jackman’s last outing as Wolverine after playing the character for over 17 years — and if that remains true then it’s a spectacular farewell.

I had a chat with Parker about working with Jackman and giving Logan the send off he deserved. We talked about the R rating the film required in order to achieve the intensity it needed, and than talked about the next thing we have to look forward to, with X-Men: Dark Phoenix.

Wolverine was my introduction to the X-Men universe and he’s still my favorite . What was it like seeing this journey from the first X-Men to Logan?

Great and fantastic. I’ve worked with Hugh Jackman for so many years when I was at the studio making the X-Men movies and then subsequently in The Wolverine and I’ve worked with him in so many forms of this character and felt we weren’t doing the character the full justice that needed to be done. Coming off The Wolverine with James Mangold, Jim became connected to the character and to the world. It became very clear that it was time to go for the Holy Grail of this character and what a story based on Wolverine could be and that was very much our intention. So, getting to see Hugh really challenged as an actor and take on grittier and complex emotional issues and doing it with such an unvarnished approach and fantastic, it was like watching a thoroughbred run. It was pretty fantastic. We had a phenomenal crew. For me, that’s the highlight of being in this role — getting to be a part of and helping facilitate that experience for everybody. It’s a cherished one for me.

You talked about the themes and how it got an R rating.

It just grew more about the story we wanted to tell and the way we wanted to tell it. It became increasingly clear that in order to do it properly, it needed to be an R-rated film. In part because of Hugh, who is so involved in every step of the way, the development and the evolution of this. The violence we traditionally show in these movies is sort of unreal. Part of the text of this movie is that violence has consequences and part of the stakes of the movie was that the threat that people could get hurt and do get hurt. It frankly underpins the emotional power of the film. Without it, I don’t believe the movie would be as emotional as it ultimately is. It was critical to us and the studio was supportive of us. It’s a big credit to them because that would not always have been the case. I think they had come to believe as we did that these movies more and more were demanding a more ambitious and more unique approach. That the marketplace was hungry for filmmakers making bolder choices with the material they were choosing. In this case, in terms of character and thematics, part of that became the violence as a language to get to the deeper emotional issues.

What was it like reading the script and seeing Wolverine grittier this time around?

It was revelatory as we’d been talking about it a long time. It went through a lot of iterations for it to become the script that we ultimately made as the movie. Again, I loved it and loved getting to see Charles as the senile father. I loved the idea of this young female Wolverine coming to haunt him and call him out on his issues. I love the parallel of the brother who’d gone wrong that is staring Logan in the face. All the different faces of Logan that have him account for who he is and how he’s lived his life.

The idea of getting to execute it and see it come to life with Patrick and Hugh and Dafne is a revelation. It was a great experience.

How did you found those perfect locations?

We were shooting in Louisiana. It has a lot to offer but it didn’t give us the full breadth of what we needed in terms of what we needed and Jim felt very strongly that it was a road movie and we needed to take the audience on a visual journey as well as a physical one. So, part of that meant new landscapes where you can feel that they are real in terms of keeping with the tone of the movie. Ultimately, we shot in Louisiana, New Mexico in multiple locations to get those different looks. It was kind of a journey through America in a way that’s what the story called for and we hadn’t seen that in a while. Not in these films, that tend to be stage based. So, that landscape, that openness and the closed pine forest that we found in New Mexico were part of creating that feeling and that journey for the audience.

It was challenging because we fought the weather and all normal things you fight when you’re shooting at 8500 feet, but it was well worth it. As challenging as it was, it was gold for the film.

Our next outing will be Dark Phoenix. What can you tease us with that we are allowed to know?

We are a long way from coming out. The EW cover was exciting. The same philosophy is being brought to there. We wanted to be much more character-centric and leaning into the Dark Phoenix and Jean Grey story. This gave us a much more focused character journey to tell. As with those other films, Simon was searching to find the dramatic language that is right for that story. Trying to stake out fresh ground to take us on a journey through those characters and the problems they face with a unique approach, with a unique approach to that voice. I think that was much more an authentic look for these characters as fully fleshed out and fully realized people. Some of the earlier films seem theatrical which was great for the time, but these movies are evolving fast and the desire was to meet that challenge by pushing it further. I think it’s the most emotional version of these films we’ve ever done. It features some of the best performances we’ve ever gotten. It still has the great scale and scope of the X-Men films, but it’s taking advantage of the saga and what’s embedded in it in terms of the dilemma and challenges for the characters to a different end. It is almost like looking at it like an epic family drama in terms of the way it feels. I think visually it will look different. The performances are grittier and more intense.

One of my favorite scenes in Logan is the burial scene. It was a fitting send-off.

It was pretty intense. It came very late in the schedule and we all became aware as we were working our way through the story, each one of those scenes was pushing us closer to the conclusion of the movie. There’s always something momentous about those moments because you’re a forced family overnight. A large group of people, stuck together, spending 14 hours a day together, you’re meshed, and suddenly it’s over. It’s an unusual ritual in general. In this case, everyone had a great experience on the movie, but we were nearing the end of the character and we were saying goodbye in our cinematic terms to Logan. It was intense. You’re doing the job and in the back of your mind, we were aware of the significance of the moment.

As I recall, that burial scene was being shot quickly in the afternoon because the sun was going down earlier and you didn’t get as much time, but we were scrambling as we were doing it. You had the confluence of the death mixed with this frenetic push to get the sequence done and finish the scene. In the middle of it, Dafne was extraordinary and broke our hearts. It all got squeezed into that day in such a remarkable way.