The Wolverine

James Mangold was the second choice behind the camera. Darren Aronofsky left in March 2011, saying the production would keep him out of the country for close to a year, and Mangold took over that June. The source is unusual too: a 1982 limited series by Chris Claremont and Frank Miller rather than an ongoing run. A story set in Japan was largely shot in Australia. Photography started in New South Wales in July 2012, Kurnell became the prisoner camp, the Yukon material was captured at Picton, and only a few weeks of work happened in Tokyo and Fukuyama. The freeway plates behind the bullet train fight were recorded by eight Red Epic cameras travelling at sixty kilometres an hour, then multiplied tenfold in post. Mangold deliberately shrank the stakes. Nobody is saving the planet, and the climax rests on whether one man still wants to be alive. The third act therefore stays quiet until the Silver Samurai turns up, at which point the register changes hard. That seam is where the film splits in two. Suited to anyone willing to treat lost immortality as a subject rather than a pretext for fights. If the theatrical version felt too tame, a second route exists: an unrated cut twelve minutes longer restores the swearing and the ninja battle.