20th Century Fox has set a July 26, 2013 release date for The Wolverine. Filming was initially scheduled to begin last year but Hugh Jackman’s commitment to Tom Hooper’s Les Miserables, along with location issues, caused a delay. Now it looks like filming will begin sometime over the upcoming months.

The script, written by The Usual Suspects writer Christopher McQuarrie, takes Wolverine to Japan where he falls for a woman named Mariko, the daughter of a Japanese crime lord. It will contain many elements from Frank Miller’s Wolverine storyline from the 1980s.

At the moment the July 2013 release gives The Wolverine little competition, other than Lionsgate’s Dirty Dancing remake and Disney’s animated Phineas and Ferb film.

James Mangold (Walk the Line, 3:10 to Yuma) is directing, and we can expect to hear casting and production news soon.

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Walt Disney Studios has announced that Real Steel will be released on DVD and Blu-ray January 24, 2012. The movie starred Hugh Jackman as an out-of-work fighter who bonds with his estranged son (Dakota Goyo) when they go to work rescuing a junkyard find named Atom, and groom it as a potential champion in the World Robot Boxing league.

Real Steel was released back in October and has made $250m worldwide so far. It’s a good number, but with a budget of around $110m (excluding marketing) it’s still unknown whether DreamWorks will move forward with the sequel they’ve been planning. Maybe after the DVD and Blu-ray sales they’ll have an idea.

DVD special features include:

- Making of Metal Valley
- Building the Bots
- Bloopers

2-Disc Blu-ray Combo Pack (1 Blu-ray Disc + 1 DVD) features nclude:

All DVD Bonus Features PLUS
Real Steel Second Screen
Countdown to the Fight — The Charlie Kenton Story
Sugar Ray Leonard: Cornerman’s Champ
Deleted and Extended Scenes with introductions by Shawn Levy: Extended “Meet Ambush,” Deleted “Butterfly” Storyline

Real Steel is now available to pre-order from Amazon on: DVD | Blu-ray

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X-Men: First Class will finally be hitting DVD and Blu-ray in the UK on October 31, and in preparation The Sun has released a new behind the scenes clip showing how Hugh Jackman’s hilarious cameo was filmed.

Watch using the player below (via CBM):

Initially I was against Wolverine having anything to do with X-Men: First Class as he’s already dominated the trilogy (at the expense of other characters) and he’s got his spin-offs, but the brief cameo was great. I don’t want Wolverine to have sort of presence in any future First Class sequels as they should focus on Xavier, Magneto, and the team, but I wouldn’t be against another cameo.

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According to Deadline Anne Hathaway has closed a deal to join Hugh Jackman and Russell Crowe in Les Miserables, the movie adaptation of the classic novel and Broadway musical set in 19th-century France which has Tom Hooper (The King’s Speech) directing.

Hathaway will play Fantine, a factory worker who faces increasingly dire circumstances as she tries to provide for her young daughter Cosette. Crowe will play Javert, the uncompassionate police inspector who will stop at nothing to recapture Jean Valjean (Jackman), the man who steals bread to feed his sister and spends the ensuing years in prison (or trying to escape it) while also becoming the guardian of Cosette. Helena Bonham Carter, who worked with Hooper on The King’s Speech, will play Thenardier’s greedy wife.

William Nicholson (Gladiator) has adapted the screenplay based on Victor Hugo’s 1862 novel. Working Title (Atonement) are producing, as is Sir Cameron MacKintosh who produced the stage version of the musical. Filming will begin later this year for a December 7, 2012 release date.

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While Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine has been slashing people on-screen for the past 10 years, 20th Century Fox and the directors have kept the blood and gore to a minimum so as to ensure an audience-friendly rating. It makes sense given the budgets and popularity past X-Men films have had, but seeing Wolverine truly ‘unleashed’ would give fans something to look forward to.

While promoting Real Steel Hugh Jackman was asked about The Wolverine, and he said there is talk about shooting both PG-13 and R-rated versions of the film.

From SHH:

“There’s such great temptation to make an R-rated ‘Wolverine’,” he says, “I’ve always felt that. I know a lot of fans would like that. I totally get it. If there was ever a superhero that was going to be R-rated, it’s Wolverine. However, in the last ten years, I’ve also met many, many 12, 13, dare I say 10, 14, 15 year-olds who, for them, Wolverine is not just cool, you see it in their eyes. He’s everything to them. So my thing is — which James Mangold and I talked about — is let’s not put it off the table. There’s even a talk of us doing two versions, as in finding a way for us to do both as you shoot it, which could be really cool. But you need to have a really good reason to exclude those fans.”

I can’t see 20th Century Fox releasing a blood and gore version on the big screen as the rating would be eliminating a big chunk of the potential audience, but a separate DVD/Blu-ray release should definitely be considered.

The Wolverine is expected to start shooting next year under the direction of James Mangold (Walk the Line, 3:10 to Yuma) after Jackman wraps Tom Hooper’s Les Miserables for Universal. The script, written by The Usual Suspects writer Christopher McQuarrie, takes Wolverine to Japan where he falls for a woman named Mariko, the daughter of a Japanese crime lord. It will contain many elements from Frank Miller’s Wolverine storyline from the 1980s.

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It will be impossible for Real Steel to avoid comparison to Michael Bay’s Transformers films, since they’re all ostensibly about giant anthropomorphized fighting robots. But despite the surface comparisons, the films don’t actually share very many qualities. The Transformers series is brash and loud, while Real Steel is a classic heartfelt underdog story with the DNA of Rocky, Over the Top, and many more sports movies pumping through its robotic veins. It’s manipulative in all the right ways – similar to this year’s other “against all odds in the ring” movie, Warrior – and even though it’s about robot boxing (I know, I thought it sounded stupid, too!), it’s actually a surprisingly effective story with relationships at its core.

In the near future, human boxing has become too boring for audiences thirsty for destruction. Flesh isn’t capable of sustaining the big hits that crowds demand, so boxers are replaced by robots. Ex-contender Charlie Kenton (Hugh Jackman) is down on his luck, touring the country doing robot boxing exhibitions he controls remotely from the sidelines. When his ex-wife dies, Charlie becomes responsible for the well-being of his estranged 11-year-old son, Max (Dakota Goyo). Stuck with the kid for the summer, Charlie soon realizes that Max is a video game nut who knows a thing or two about robots. With Charlie’s prizefighting experience and Max’s busted up old robot Atom (equipped with “shadow” function), the two set out to make it to the top and end up repairing their damaged relationship in the process.

For me, the biggest surprise of Real Steel wasn’t how much I enjoyed it, but that it came from director Shawn Levy. This is the same man who directed The Pink Panther remake, my disdain for which has been well-documented on this site. (I literally didn’t smile the entire time I watched that movie.) He has also directed less offensive fare, including the Night at the Museum movies and Date Night. But this is his first foray into any genre that isn’t comedy, and Real Steel proves the man deserves a chance to direct any genre he wants, since he convincingly pulled off a science fiction/sports/action/drama.

This is a pure underdog tale, and though the setting and broad concept may be original, it’s pretty standard as far as the story goes. But it’s a well-told story with some outstanding visual effects. Levy and his screenwriters make every beat work, and add some real zest to the fight sequences by using real life boxing legend Sugar Ray Leonard as the motion capture actor for Atom, Max’s robot on the rise. The blending of CGI and practical effects is outstanding, combining computer created characters with real eight-foot-tall robots.

Hugh Jackman is believable as an ex-boxer, and his character is the kind of reckless rogue you love to hate. Evangeline Lilly plays Bailey, Charlie’s ex-lover, gym owner, and mechanic who helps the father and son team forge their relationship. Thankfully, Lilly separates herself from her “LOST” character Kate Austen; this isn’t a brilliant performance from the actress, but it’s enough to see she’s got potential and good to see she didn’t get pigeonholed into playing the same exact character in everything. And though it’s a well-documented fact that I’m not crazy about kids in movies – they are almost always written as either an annoying hindrance to the protagonist or a sage giver of advice – Dakota Goyo didn’t bother me because his character had perhaps the most common sense of anyone in the film. For the most part, he made good choices and smart suggestions, which is a relief to see on screen every once in a while. There are also some tiny moments for guys like Kevin Durand (in a “LOST” reunion with Lilly) and the inexcusably underutilized Anthony Mackie (Lilly’s co-star in The Hurt Locker…huh), but not enough from either to get excited about.

This movie was one of the biggest surprises of the fall for me, considering I laughed aloud when I saw its trailer for the first time. Despite the ludicrous concept, the story (based on Richard Matheson’s short story) is surprisingly effective and the movie earns all of its moments. To sum it all up in a quote for the poster: Real Steel is the real deal. Until next time…

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Universal has just set a December 7, 2012 release date for Les Miserables, a new version of the classic novel and Broadway musical set in 19th-century France. We’ve previously heard that The King’s Speech director Tom Hooper is on-board, as is Hugh Jackman, and now they look set to be joined by Russell Crowe and Helena Bonham Carter.

According to THR Crowe will play Javert, the uncompassionate police inspector who will stop at nothing to recapture Jean Valjean (Jackman), the man who steals bread to feed his sister and spends the ensuing years in prison (or trying to escape it) while also becoming the guardian of a young woman named Cosette. Carter, who just worked with Hooper on The King’s Speech, will play Thenardier’s greedy wife.

William Nicholson (Gladiator) has adapted the screenplay based on Victor Hugo’s sprawling 1862 novel. Working Title (Atonement) are producing, as is Sir Cameron MacKintosh who produced the stage version of the musical. Filming will begin later this year.

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Christopher McQuarrie’s script for The Wolverine has been getting a lot of praise from those who’ve read it, but with James Mangold (Girl, Interrupted, Walk the Line, 3:10 to Yuma) coming on-board to direct he would obviously want to make a few changes, and according to Variety 20th Century Fox have hired Mark Bomback to “retool” the script.

Bomback wrote Bryan Singer’s Jack the Giant Killer (which funnily enough got rewrites from Christopher McQuarrie), and he is responsible for the upcoming Total Recall remake with Colin Farrell.

Variety also offer some new details on the story and characters:

Story will find Wolverine suffering from amnesia and searching for answers about his past in the Japanese criminal underworld where he finds both love and tragedy.

The entire cast will be comprised of Japanese and Japanese-American actors except for a newly-expanded character named Viper, who’s the Caucasian secretary for Japan’s Minister of Justice.

Some Googling reveals that Viper, also known as Madame Hydra, blackmailed Wolverine into marrying her at one point in the comics. I doubt they will be happening on the movie, but Marvel states that she “employed the Silver Samurai to be her personal bodyguard”. Hugh Jackman previously confirmed that the Silver Samurai would be a villain in the film, so there may be some connection there.

Filming, which will take place in Tokyo and Vancouver, is expected to start next year after Jackman wraps Tom Hooper’s Les Miserables for Universal.

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Just last week we were hearing that from November 11 to March 1, 2012 The Wolverine would be shooting up in Vancouver, but circumstances may have changed as according to Deadline 20th Century Fox may push filming back to Spring 2012.

The reason is said to be Hugh Jackman’s involvement in Les Miserables, a new version of the classic novel and Broadway musical set in 19th-century France. Tom Hooper (The King’s Speech) is directing, and filming was previously said to begin in February, but it may have been moved forward. Deadline also says it is difficult for Fox in “finding just where to shoot in Japan these days because of weather-related considerations.” There concerns are probably why they’re thinking of shooting a big chunk of the movie in Vancouver.

No release date has been set, but 20th Century Fox will probably be looking for a slot in late-2012 or early 2013 depending on when filming gets under-way. The script, written by The Usual Suspects writer Christopher McQuarrie, takes Wolverine to Japan where he falls for a woman named Mariko, the daughter of a Japanese crime lord. It will contains many elements from Frank Miller’s Wolverine storyline from the 1980s. James Mangold (Girl, Interrupted, Walk the Line, 3:10 to Yuma) is directing.

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DreamWorks have released a new featurette for Real Steel, Hugh Jackman’s robot boxing movie. The featurette explains the setting and character situations in the film, and shows how boxing legend Sugar Ray Leonard helped out with the robot fight scenes.

Watch below:

Real Steel takes place in 2020 and features Hugh Jackman as an out-of-work fighter who bonds with his estranged son when they go to work rescuing a junkyard find named Atom, and grooming it as a potential champion in the World Robot Boxing league. The movie also stars Evangeline Lilly (Lost) as a friend of Jackman, Dakota Goyo as Jackman’s young son and Kevin Durand (Wolverine) as a boxing promoter

The film is directed by Shawn Levy (Night at the Museum) who was offered the job by Steven Spielberg, and opens on October 7th.

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