Hugh Jackman

One of the most impressive parts about Logan was one of its most closely guarded secrets: Hugh Jackman not only played the title character, he played his evil double too; a perfect clone of Wolverine known as X-24. This new character wasn’t featured in any of the marketing materials or even alluded to in any way. When he shows up late in the film he is a shock, and an effective extension of the movie’s themes about a man wrestling with his nature as a killer (and, possibly, a monster).

Hugh Jackman’s The Greatest Showman, a musical about the life of famed circus director P.T. Barnum, had a tough time getting off the ground. Before La La Land, if you can believe there was such a time, studios looked askance at any who suggested a rebirth of the Hollywood musical. But Jackman and director Michael Gracey were not to be deterred, working like mad to get their circus musical off the ground, and it paid off. The Greatest Showman will hit theaters this December, and the first images hit the Internet today.

When Logan arrives on Blu-ray next week, it will include one of the better bonus features in recent home entertainment history: A black and white cut of the film called Logan Noir, which made its premiere last night at a special screening at Brooklyn’s Alamo Drafthouse. The Noir cut looks great, but the real story coming out of last night’s event wasn’t the new version, it was a comment made by director James Mangold during the post-screening Q&A.

With the black-and-white version of Logan, now known as Logan Noir, set to hit theaters tomorrow, May 17, director James Mangold gave fans a sneak peek at the de-colorized edition. And hoo boy, does it look pretty.

The role of young mutant Laura (aka X-23) in Logan is a demanding one, to say the least, and it’s not surprising that finding the perfect actor for the part was equally challenging for director James Mangold. He needed to find a 12-year-old actress with acrobatic and martial-arts skills who could speak English and Spanish, and, perhaps most important of all, hold her own opposite Hugh Jackman. That’s a pretty specific list of requirements, but Dafne Keen fit the bill (and then some), and now you can watch one of the incredibly impressive (and profanity-laden, FYI) audition tapes that led to her breakout role.

Fans of Hugh Jackman’s final Wolverine movie are about to have a pretty big month: not only does Logan return to theaters in a special black-and-white format on Tuesday, May 16, but the movie will be available on VOD that same date and on Blu-ray/DVD on May 23. A home video release, of course, means deleted scenes, and deleted scenes often have a habit of showing up online in the few weeks before the physical copy is released. And gosh, wouldn’t you know? A doozy of a deleted scene is now available for your viewing pleasure.

For those of you who, like me, were totally enamored with the official Logan Instagram account’s eschewal of color for most of the movie’s production schedule, you probably missed that retro simplicity a little in the actual movie. If you’d like to see a black and white cut of Hugh Jackman’s last turn as Wolverine, good news: That’s exactly what James Mangold is going to give us.

Every time an actor says they’re retiring, or quitting, or done playing a role, there’s always some speculation that they’ll come back once the stars align. Sometimes that works, like how Hayao Miyazaki has claimed he’s retiring at least three times before making a grand return some months later. Hugh Jackman told everyone, and continues to tell everyone, that Logan is his last-ever appearance as Wolverine, but that hasn’t stopped some from trying to figure out ways in which he could be finagled into future X-Men movies.

By now, everyone knows that Logan is Hugh Jackman’s last go-round as Wolverine. It’s tough to see him go — he’s arguably the protagonist of the original X-Men trilogy and was always a welcome presence in the new crop of movies, but he’s a big star now, and Logan is a tone-perfect way to round out his career as that character. Now, the question becomes: who, if anyone, will take his place? The X-Men series will still continue for at least one more movie, and there are a number of spinoffs in the works, so Wolverine will have to reappear somehow, right?

Now that Hugh Jackman has hung up his adamantium claws, the Logan actor is setting his sights on another project, and one that might finally allow him to eat some carbs. After eating nothing but air and grass for 17 years to stay buff as Wolverine (just kidding, he probably ate chicken and broccoli or something slightly more appetizing), Jackman is now in talks to play Enzio Ferrari in Michael Mann‘s upcoming biopic.