X-Men Movie Producer Talks Franchise Challenges & Bold Future

Anyone familiar with the creative team behind the X-Men film franchise will know the name Lauren Shuler-Donner very well. She’s produced every movie in the franchise but in recent years, with the series growing exponentially a few others have joined the family like writer Simon Kinberg and Hutch Parker who also have producer roles.

We met Hutch back in fall 2012 on the set of The Wolverine which represented his first time producing. He previously worked on the studio side of things at Fox but is now a part of the X-Men family. Of the three X-Men movie releases in 2018, he’ll be working in Montreal again on X-Men: Dark Phoenix, the followup to X-Men: Apocalypse which is set to be directed by Kinberg (his first time at the helm).

We had the chance to speak with him on the phone recently about Logan for its home video release after a record-setting and mega successful run at the box office. It earned a 92% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and over $600 million at the worldwide box office without the use of 3D and with an R-rating, further solidifying the X-Men franchise the most adult of the superhero cinematic universes (Deadpool similarly crushed the box office and won critical praise as well, also without 3D, with an R rating, and without a China release).

Let’s start there…

Looking back now at the box office, the response from fans and critics, how does it compare to what you expected and what you’ve done previously with two Wolverine movies and Deadpool?

HUTCH PARKER: I think we were all pretty experienced in – and you know when you’re making any movie, you have your hopes and expectations – but reality doesn’t always conform with your hopes and expectations. We did feel like, we felt strongly – and Jim [James Mangold] in particular – but really Jim, Hugh [Jackman] and myself, felt very strongly that doing something different was critical. And being willing to delve into a deeper telling of the story, a deeper exploration of the character, an edgier version was all pretty critical to doing, what I think, the marketplace is, frankly, demanding across the board. Not just on these movies or comic book movies but on movies in general. Where there’s just an expectation and a demand on the part of the audience for a fresher and better story telling. I think we were fortunate because, for me, Jim Mangold is one of the best directors working in film. Just in my experience. And his instincts for how to execute this story, both in terms of its visual gritty tone and avoiding the traditional global stakes in terms of the casting and the detailing of all the choices. I think his instincts for that are just superb and it gave us a lot of confidence. On top of that, Hugh was pretty adamant. He really did not want to do the same thing and was drawn to this much more dramatic, much more grounded and emotionally real treatment of the character as a way of finishing his journey as Logan. So, all those things conspired to make us pretty confident but you never know and you hope people embrace the film as we all did but you really never know what to expect. We were really incredibly gratified and excited to see that the audience shared the enthusiasm for it that we had ourselves.

Hugh puts on the performance of a lifetime in this one, but X-23 was a very pleasant surprise and Dafne Keen’s performance was amazing. Because this movie is set in the future, is there any way to bring a character like that back, or is that just for this story and it’s a time to move on?

HUTCH PARKER: Anything is possible. I think part of the fun of this universe is, as it’s expanded and it’s gotten more off-shoots, there are ways to potentially explore X-23 further. It’s something we’ve been talking about a little bit and have, frankly, going back a bit. So that’s a possibility.

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