Director James Mangold spoke to Empire Magazine about The Wolverine, and the most striking piece of information gleaned from their interview is something that’s been presumed to be true since the project’s inception and has now been proven false.

The Wolverine IS NOT a prequel film.

That’s weird!  Considering set photos have shown scenes that clearly take place during WWII and with the recent rumor that Famke Janssen filmed a cameo reprising her role as Jean Grey, the timeline of this story is all over the place.

The director attempts to clear up the fogginess:

“Where this film sits in the universe of the films is after them all.  Jean Grey is gone, most of the X-Men are disbanded or gone, so there’s a tremendous sense of isolation for him.”

He adds:

“That’s something that for me was very important, that I land in a very specific place in his timeline. I wanted to be able to tell the story without the burden of handing it off to a film that already exists and having to conform to it. The ideas of immortality reign very heavily in this story and the burden of immortality weighs heavily on Logan. For me that’s such an interesting part of Logan’s character that is nearly impossible to explore if you have a kind of league or team movie.”

Mangold succinctly describes the film:

“Japanese noir picture with tentpole action in it.”

The Wolverine hits theaters July 26, 2013.

Source: Empire