FADE IN:

EXT. NAGASAKI, 1945

HUGH JACKMAN has wound up in a Japanese POW camp somehow.

HUGH JACKMAN

Nagasaki, huh? Why not, it's been ages since the last time we tastelessly appropriated the most tragic events of World War II.

The bomb is dropped, and he saves YOUNG HAL YAMANOUCHI from the blast.

YOUNG HAL YAMANOUCHI

You have my eternal gratitude! But hey, where's Sabretooth? According to the timeline from the last Wolverine movie-

HUGH JACKMAN

What last Wolverine movie? I don't know what the hell you're talking about.

INT. BEDROOM (HEAVEN?)

Then HUGH WAKES UP from what turns out to have been a DREAM. Into what is clearly ANOTHER DREAM, judging from the fact that GUILT GHOST FAMKE JANSSEN is here.

FAMKE JANSSEN

Vaguely sinister ghost lovers and dreams within dreams? Inception ripoff aside, what's with the half-hearted attempt at artsy-fartsiness?

HUGH JACKMAN

Well, this WAS going to be an Aranofsky movie. But then he got replaced with the guy whose last collaboration with me was Kate and Leopold.

(shudders)

Anyway, as you can see, my schtick in this movie is that I'm haunted by nightmares of my tragic past.

FAMKE JANSSEN

So, business as usual then.

EXT. WOODS, VAGUE FUTURE TIME

HUGH wakes up for real in his HERMIT SHACK, with a big SADNESS BEARD, making the audience suddenly realize that his previous "angry drifter" days included daily hairstyling and beard care.

HUGH JACKMAN

Woe is me! Famke's death broke me. The second one, that is. The one where I killed her. Now I've retreated from the world and sworn to do no harm to anybody ever again! I just hope I don't witness any act of injustice so OUTRAGEOUS that I can't help breaking my vow...

A HUNTER kills a BEAR. But, like, in a jerk way.

HUGH JACKMAN

Oh. Is that what we're going with? Geez, it wasn't even a very convincing bear. Oh well.

He goes to KILL THE HUNTER in a BAR, but is stopped by RILA FUKUSHIMA and her BIZARRE TRIANGULAR HEAD.

RILA FUKUSHIMA

I wouldn't kill him, if I were you. And I certainly wouldn't kill the other people in the bar, who are only defending their friend from a psychotic hobo.

HUGH JACKMAN

Hm, good point. Who are you?

RILA FUKUSHIMA

I'm a mutant like you. I have the power to occasionally but not always get a vague, sometimes misleading vision of the circumstances of somebody's death.

HUGH JACKMAN

What a useless superpower. How many times do you use it with proven accuracy in this movie?

RILA FUKUSHIMA

...That's beside the point. I'm here on behalf of Hal Yamanouchi. He wants you to come to Tokyo so he can thank you before he dies.

HUGH JACKMAN

Ah yes, I remember Nagasaki. Obviously. I mean, it's not like my memory of the first hundred and fifty years of my life was totally erased or anything. Why, if that had happened, I imagine such a thing would be a fundamental part of my character, and therefore a RIDICULOUS thing to just COMPLETELY IGNORE.

EXT. TOKYO

RILA takes HUGH to HAL'S MANSION IN TOKYO, leading him past the Parade of Intriguing Character Glimpses.

HUGH JACKMAN

Ooh, who's that?

RILA FUKUSHIMA

That's Hal's son Hiroyuki Sanada, an unethical executive embroiled with the Yakuza. And a master swordsman, of course, as all middle-aged Japanese businessmen are.

HUGH JACKMAN

Ooh, who's that?

RILA FUKUSHIMA

That's Hal's granddaughter Tao Okamoto. Hal has been telling her about your kindness and bravery her whole life, so I'm not entirely sure why she's acting like you're a piece of soiled toilet paper she found stuck to her shoe.

HUGH JACKMAN

Ooh, who's that?

RILA FUKUSHIMA

That's Hal's oncologist Svetlana Khodchenkova and could you STOP THAT please.

She takes him in to see HAL, who is lying on a giant piece of PIN ART.

HAL YAMANOUCHI

Hugh, I've asked you here to reward you. Your reward is: give me your healing powers.

HUGH JACKMAN

You seem a little misinformed as to how rewards work.

HAL YAMANOUCHI

No, think about it. You hate your life, don't want to be The Wolverine any more and look forward to death. By making you mortal I'm pretty much granting your deepest desires.

HUGH JACKMAN

...Huh, that's true. At this point of my character arc this should be an irresistible offer. So, hmm, what's a compelling reason for me to say no?

(thinks)

(thinks)

(thinks)

Ah, reasons are for pussies. Shove your release from eternal suffering up your ass.

INT. BEDROOM

That night, HUGH is awoken from his usual NIGHTMARE to find that SVETLANA is making out with him with her freaky snake tongue.

HUGH JACKMAN

Another mutant! Please tell me your powers aren't as lame as Rila's.

SVETLANA KHODCHENKOVA

Well, I'm really good at biochemistry. And I have spit that causes skin conditions.

HUGH JACKMAN

Really scraping the bottom of the barrel by now, I see.

(passes out)

The next morning it turns out HAL IS DEAD.

HUGH JACKMAN

Oh my! I guess he's seriously actually dead and his whole thirst for immortality was established for no reason and didn't foreshadow anything at all.

(pause)

...Is anybody buying this? No?

EXT. FUNERAL

HUGH is attending HAL'S FUNERAL.

HUGH JACKMAN

Ooh, who's that?

RILA FUKUSHIMA

That's Tao's fiance, Chief of Justice Brian Tee, and I told you to STOP IT.

Suddenly, some MONKS turn out to be YAKUZA and try to kill TAO! HUGH intervenes, but is SHOT and doesn't HEAL.

HUGH JACKMAN

Wha - my healing factor's been turned off somehow! I'm reacting to injuries like a normal person!

TAO OKAMOTO

You're fending off assassins with deadly martial arts right after getting blasted point-blank with a shotgun. I think your idea of "normal" might be skewed a little.

HUGH rushes TAO to safety while MASTER ARCHER WILL YUN LEE and his NINJA CRONIES cover them from the rooftops.

WILL YUN LEE

We can't let Tao come to harm! It is our clan's duty to serve the Yamanouchi family, and... and... Jesus, I can't do this. Hal's family is protected by a fucking NINJA CLAN? This is like making a movie about an English industrialist and having his household be guarded by medieval knights, for fuck's sake.

Eventually HUGH gets TAO safely aboard a BULLET TRAIN.

TAO OKAMOTO

Look, could you leave me alone? It's just a Yakuza assassination attempt, I don't need some unstoppable badass warrior keeping me from getting murdered.

(pause)

You know what, listening to myself just now, I realize I might not have thought this all the way through. You can stick around I guess.

HUGH excuses himself to USE THE BATHROOM, but on his way he bumps into some more YAKUZA HITMEN. He smashes open the train's PAPIER-MACHE WALL and they all FALL OUT, but awkwardly manage to wind up on the ROOF.

HUGH JACKMAN

Okay, remember, if we want to beat Mission: Impossible's record for Most Implausible Train Rooftop Sequence, we need to outdo it in both disregard for the laws of physics AND unconvincing special effects. We're up against CGI from 1996 here, so we've got our work cut out for us.

The effects of GRAVITY and INERTIA fluctuate wildly while HUGH and the HITMEN skitter and bounce along the roof like paper cups.

HUGH JACKMAN

All right, we did it! Good work, guys!

(murders them all)

HUGH gets back on the TRAIN and ushers TAO out at the next stop.

HUGH JACKMAN

The train's not safe, some of the Yakuza who were at the funeral were just here, armed to the teeth.

TAO OKAMOTO

What makes you so sure they were after me?

HUGH JACKMAN

...I can't think of a dumber question you could have possibly asked just now. Let's go.

They go check into a JAPANESE SEX HOTEL, where HUGH suddenly remembers that GUNSHOT WOUNDS ARE BAD and passes out. When he comes to, he's being patched up by a VETERINARY STUDENT.

VET

All right, I took the bullets out and gave you some stitches, that's an adequate cure for getting shot multiple times and losing most of your blood. I fixed your hands up, too.

HUGH JACKMAN

My hands?

VET

You know, the spaces between your knuckles? Your foot-long claws have burst out of there like fifty times since you lost your healing powers, surely they'd have been shredded to pulp by now.

HUGH JACKMAN

No, they were protected by the power of hoping nobody would pick up on that.

HUGH and TAO go hide out at a YAMANOUCHI FAMILY HOME which is untraceable because the movie says so.

TAO OKAMOTO

So what's our next move? Do we investigate how Svetlana was able to suppress your healing factor? Do we figure out who wants me dead and why? Maybe we should contact my Chief of Justice fiance, or that ninja clan sworn to protect me, or-

HUGH JACKMAN

Woah, woah, stop. I'm not exactly the kind of hero who thinks more than two minutes ahead. I figure if we just hang here for a bit, plot will start happening again of its own accord.

TAO OKAMOTO

Okay. In the meantime, I might as well jump your bones.

HUGH JACKMAN

Ah, if you're going to share a bed with me, you should be aware that I have chronic nightmares that tend to make me wake up kinda stabby.

TAO OKAMOTO

Hey, if the fact that you're so old that I first knew you from my grandfather's WWII anecdotes doesn't put me off, clearly nothing will.

They tastefully FUCK. In the morning, HUGH wakes up to find that TAO is being abducted by YAKUZA. He manages to incapacitate one of them, but the others get away with TAO.

RILA FUKUSHIMA

(arriving)

Hi, Hugh. Bad time? I just came to warn you that I had a vision of your death.

HUGH JACKMAN

You, Tao's closest friend and adopted sister, came directly to Tao's secret hiding place just for that? You could have led the bad guys right here! Good thing they already kidnapped her anyway, or I'd be pissed!

RILA FUKUSHIMA

But it's important you learn how you die!

HUGH JACKMAN

Come on, you know it's just going to be a lame ten-second "clinically dead" thing. It always is.

RILA FUKUSHIMA

I don't see how it could be with THIS death. You're holding your own heart in your hand! It's not beating! There's blood everywhere!

HUGH JACKMAN

Yeah, I'm SURE they'll show that in a PG-13 movie. Man, they're going to have to do some SERIOUS copping out to get out of this one.

HUGH goes and threatens the YAKUZA HENCHMAN.

HUGH JACKMAN

WHO ARE YOU WORKING FOR?!

YAKUZA

Brian!

HUGH goes and threatens BRIAN.

HUGH JACKMAN

WHO ARE YOU WORKING FOR?!

BRIAN TEE

Hiroyuki!

(pause)

Boy, it was really worth while having me in the movie, wasn't it?

INT. YAMANOUCHI INC.

TAO has been brought to HIROYUKI.

HIROYUKI SANADA

So, you may have already figured out that I want you dead because Hal's will grants the company to you and not me.

TAO OKAMOTO

Then why didn't you have the Yakuza just shoot me instead of abducting me? Did you think less suspicion would fall on you if I died right outside your office when you had no alibi? Idiot.

But before HIROYUKI can kill TAO, SVETLANA and WILL show up and take her! Then HUGH and RILA arrive.

HUGH JACKMAN

Hey, one of Svetlana's creepy little bug robots is missing from her lab! Bet you anything it's IN ME!

(uses future MRI)

Yes, there it is, hugging my heart! ...How in the hell did that thing get in there? Are we meant to take it that Svetlana kissed it into me? Screw this, I'm getting rid of it, via the method that Rila's vision pretty much guarantees will kill me.

HUGH carves his own chest open and starts rummaging around. But then HIROYUKI shows up dressed like a SAMURAI and RILA has to fight him!

RILA FUKUSHIMA

What are you doing? Right now, trying to chop up Hugh and me, how does this help you get your father's company?

HIROYUKI SANADA

Oh, that plotline's over. Now I'm just being Mister Crazypants for the sake of an action scene! RAAHHH DIE!!!

While the fight goes on around him, HUGH pulls the bug out of his chest. Afterwards, his heart stops beating, with his hand nowhere near it.

HUGH JACKMAN

Told ya. Wasn't even really any blood.

(dies)

(comes back to life)

HUGH gets up and starts fighting HIROYUKI.

HUGH JACKMAN

This fight scene ought to be real intense, now that I've just become completely indestructible again!

HUGH easily defeats HIROYUKI. Then he finds a note from SVETLANA.

HUGH JACKMAN

"Hugh, come get Tao at the following address". Hm, what is it they say about traps? Walk right into them without taking any precautions whatsoever? Sounds about right.

EXT. SECRET LAB

HUGH shows up at the trap, where he is ambushed by WILL and the NINJAS.

WILL YUN LEE

Whoops, Hugh's got his healing powers back. Everybody shoot him with rope arrows so we can capture him!

NINJA

Say, if we expected him to be mortal, how come we prepared a means of capturing him which would kill him a hundred times over?

The NINJAS all fire their ROPE ARROWS into HUGH.

HUGH JACKMAN

Oh no, rope! If only I had access to some kind of cutting implements!

They take HUGH in to SVETLANA, who straps him to a chair.

SVETLANA KHODCHENKOVA

So you see, Hugh, I suppressed your healing to make you vulnerable enough to capture you and steal your healing powers.

HUGH JACKMAN

Then you probably should have captured me right after you put the bug in my chest. You know, when I was asleep and defenseless, and you were right there? Just tied me up and shipped me here, boom, easy.

SVETLANA KHODCHENKOVA:

True. I didn't even really need to de-power you, as we're proving right now. But hey, hindsight is twenty-twenty.

But then TAO frees HUGH! HUGH gets into a fight with an ADAMANTIUM SAMURAI who looks like he escaped from a PS2 BOSS FIGHT. The SAMURAI uses a SUPER-HEATED ADAMANTIUM SWORD to CHOP HUGH'S CLAWS OFF!

HUGH JACKMAN

OH, FUCK OFF! When is this franchise going to stop pulling new rules about adamantium out of its ass?!

Meanwhile, WILL comes to his senses and shoots SVETLANA with an arrow, and she falls several stories onto a metal floor. But then she just pulls the arrow out of her chest and let's hope that's meant to be a POWER of hers and not just DUMB.

SVETLANA KHODCHENKOVA

Agh, that injury made my skin turn all scaly for whatever reason. I'll just ignore the climactic battle going on and spend the next minute or so slowly peeling my skin off.

She does so, then RILA shows up!

SVETLANA KHODCHENKOVA

Oho, this ought to be a good fight! After all, they've well established you as a master swordfighter and martial artist, and me as a... er, biochemist. Huh. Okay, how about I just hold my own in a fight against you and we'll act like it makes any sense at all.

RILA fights and kills SVETLANA, and the SAMURAI kills WILL, then grabs HUGH by the CLAW STUMPS and starts sucking his HEALING FACTOR right out of his BONE MARROW.

HAL YAMANOUCHI

Hi, Hugh, it's me after all! I could keep my character at least somewhat consistent by expressing regret that it should have come to this, but I think it'd be FAR less interesting if I just turned into a cackling cartoon supervillain, AH HA HA HA HAAAAA!!!

HAL starts turning YOUNG AGAIN, while HUGH turns OLD, or possibly just gets jaundice.

HUGH JACKMAN

Okay, so my healing powers make burns, slashes and bullet wounds completely vanish, but I guess it just stores the ravages of time up for later use. This is veering away from "mutant superpower" and towards "gypsy curse".

But then TAO stabs HAL in the BRAIN, and HUGH manages to get his CLAW STUMPS free and he and HAL revert to normal. HUGH grows back his bone claws, tears HAL'S ADAMANTIUM ARMOR apart with his bare hands, then heroically stabs a dying old man in the chest and throws him off a cliff.

HUGH JACKMAN

All right, now that I've made up for killing Famke by saving Tao, I can finally be at peace!

TAO OKAMOTO

In case you hadn't noticed, I was the one who saved you. You didn't even rescue me from my crazy father, it was the bad guys who did that.

HUGH JACKMAN

Oh well, I'm going to go ahead and have catharsis anyway.

TAO OKAMOTO

So now that's over, are you going to stay in Tokyo with me? I know earlier I said I was honor-bound to go through with my arranged marriage to Brian, but I think the audience has forgotten that he's still alive, so fuck him.

HUGH JACKMAN

I'd love to stick around, living a life of luxury with my hot super-rich girlfriend. But now that I've snapped out of my hobo funk, I need to go back to what The Wolverine does best.

TAO OKAMOTO

...Um, drift aimlessly and occasionally get into bouts of random violence?

HUGH JACKMAN

I told you I wasn't the kind of hero who thought things out.

END.

IAN MCKELLEN

Hold it! Hugh, there's are dark times brewing in the other spin-off series. Patrick and me, two of the most all-powerful mutants in the world, could really use the help of a meathead thug with knife hands.

PATRICK STEWART

What do you say, want to come back in time with us to fuck up this franchise's continuity once and for all?

HUGH JACKMAN

If there's any chance we'll make The Last Stand non-canon, I'm in.

END.