Within the pages of the latest Empire Magazine, director James Mangold has confirmed that his upcoming film -- The Wolverine -- takes place after all of the previous X-Men films, including The Last Stand. As we saw in the final film, Logan was forced to murder Jean Grey because she could not control the Phoenix's power, Professor Xavier and Scott Summers were believed to be deceased, and the team had disbanded. With rumors of some of the original cast returning for X-Men: Days of Future Past, it remains to be seen whether or not this film will tie-in to that storyline. Below are comments from James Mangold himself on the timeline placement.
"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."
"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."
