The X-Men franchise has been experiencing some time hopping in the last few films. X-Men: First Class took place in the sixties, X-Men: Days Of Future Past in the seventies and X-Men: Apocalypse in the eighties. Now questions arise about where Logan fits into this confusing timeline as Logan is set in the far future.
Screen Crush recently interviewed Logan director James Mangold about the upcoming movie. The director discussed many topics including the confusing timeline. As the film being set in the future, does this mean that the film is not following the past movie’s timelines? The director explained:
“We are in the future, we have passed the point of the epilogue of Days Of Future Past. We’re finding all these characters in circumstances that are a little more real. The questions of aging, of loneliness, of where I belong. Am I still useful to the world? I saw it as an opportunity. We’ve seen these characters in action, saving the universe. But what happens when you’re in retirement and that career is over?”
The director’s explanation puts Logan as a direct sequel to X-Men: Days Of Future Past and X-Men: Apocalypse. In days Of Future Past, Wolverine changed the past in 1973 to prevent an apocalyptic future. The hero was successful at altering the timeline and wakes up in an alternate 2023 where the Sentinels (the robots that were in the previous film) do not exist.
With the timeline change, the previous two wolverine films X-Men Origins: Wolverine and The Wolverine, now never happened. So Wolverine receiving adamantium claws in the first Wolverine film never happened. Instead, he is captured a full decade earlier than the original timeline. Which brings us to Logan. The end credits of Apocalypse showed members of Essex Corp stealing vials of Wolverine’s blood. The film Logan takes place in 2024, where Laura Kinney has been created from Wolverine’s DNA (his blood).
