The Wolverine was initially scheduled to begin shooting last year but Hugh Jackman’s commitment to Tom Hooper’s Les Miserables, along with location issues, caused a delay. However in February 20th Century Fox set a July 2013 release date, and now reports suggest filming will take place later this year in Australia.

From AU News:

In a deal estimated to be worth $80 million to the New South Wales economy, the blockbuster is the latest big budget movie to be made in the state following recent hits such as The Great Gatsby, Lego, Walking With Dinosaurs and Happy Feet 2.

Deputy Premier Andrew Stoner, who helped secure the deal with 20th Century Fox when he flew to Los Angeles in January, said winning the film would generate more than 2000 jobs for Sydney.

“The Wolverine is expected to generate more than $80 million in production expenditure in NSW and create more than 720 jobs for NSW-based cast and crew, along with opportunities for 1200 extras,” he said.

“It is a testament to our screen industry that Hugh Jackman and his team have chosen to come back to Australia after such a positive experience making the X-Men Origins.”

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. Early in production there was talk of shooting in Japan, and some shooting may still take place there, but it looks like Australia is once again the shooting base for Wolverine.

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

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Here’s a quick update from WB regarding their Summer 2013 release slate. The Hollywood Reporter tells us that the studio plans on kicking off Memorial Day Weekend by releasing The Hangover 3 on May 24th, 2013, with Todd Phillips returning to direct Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, and Zach Galifianakis once again. (No word on the plot just yet.)

300: Battle of Artemesia, the long-gestating sequel to Zack Snyder’s 2006 hit, will open on August 2nd, 2013. That one features Eva Green, Rodrigo Santoro, Sullivan Stapleton, and is directed by Noam Murro.

And finally, fans of Guillermo del Toro will have to wait just a tiny bit longer to see his new action/monster movie Pacific Rim, since they’ve bumped it from May back to July 12th, 2013.

And we thought 2012 was going to be a big year. Aside from those mentioned above, the summer of 2013 will see releases of Star Trek 2, Man of Steel, Iron Man 3, The Lone Ranger, Fast Six, The Wolverine, and Robopocalypse. Better start saving your cash now – there are a ton of potentially great films in that list.

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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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You may remember that an unfinished print of X-Men Origins: Wolverine appeared online in April 2009, about a month before its theatrical release. 20th Century Fox got aggressive, as you would expect, and with the help of the MPAA, FBI and local law enforcement they managed to track down a guy called Gilberto Sanchez.

Sanchez admitted to putting the workprint, complete with temporary sound and music and a darker appearance than the finished footage, on Megaupload.com after buying a copy of the film near his home in the Bronx. In March he plead guilty to “uploading a copyrighted work being prepared for commercial distribution”, and now he’s been sentenced to one year in federal prison.

From Hollywood, Esq:

“The federal prison sentence handed down in this case sends a strong message of deterrence to would-be Internet pirates,” U.S. attorney Andre Birotte Jr. said in a statement. “The Justice Department will pursue and prosecute persons who seek to steal the intellectual property of this nation.”

“Although Fox was able to get defendant’s Wolverine workprint removed from his Megaupload account within approximately one day, by then, the damage was done and the film had proliferated like wildfire throughout the Internet, resulting in up to millions of infringements,” prosecutors said in court documents.

The original source of the Wolverine workprint has never been revealed, but it was thought to have been downloaded over 4.5 million times by the time the movie hit screens the following month. The studio estimated another $30-40 million could have been added to Wolverine‘s $373 million worldwide gross if the leak didn’t occur, but there’s no real way of telling how the leak impacted the box office results.

The Wolverine, the follow-up to X-Men Origins: Wolverine, may start filming sometime next year under the direction of James Mangold (Knight and Day, Walk the Line).

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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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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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Lauren Shuler Donner recently sat down for a bunch of interviews to promote the DVD and Blu-ray release of X-Men: First Class this Friday in the US. The producer, who has been involved with every X-Men film to date, was asked whether we will see a sequel to First Class, gave an update on The Wolverine, and updated the status of Deadpool with Ryan Reynolds.

A decision regarding an X-Men: First Class sequel will likely be dependant on the DVD/Blu-ray sales, but Donner says “very big internal discussions” are taking place, and told I Am Rogue the main priory was getting a good story.

Yes. I mean that movie was a very strenuous movie so Matthew and everybody took some time off. Now we’re back and regrouping and kicking around some ideas. I think we just need to come up with a really good story and see where that leads us. If we could, great, if not, I think the story itself is what is most important.

Back in May Vaughn revealed his idea for the opening of the next film, saying “I thought it would be fun to open with the Kennedy Assassination, and we reveal that the magic bullet was controlled by Magneto. That would explain the physics of it, and we see that he’s pissed off because Kennedy took all the credit for saving the world and mutants weren’t even mentioned.” Magneto killing John F. Kennedy would have some major ramifications, so here’s hoping it gets made and we get to witness them.

Reports surfaced over the past few weeks saying filming on The Wolverine had been pushed back to 2012, and 20th Century Fox hired Mark Bomback to “retool” the script in the meantime. When speaking to HitFix Donner confirmed the delays, and said it was all down to Hugh’s availability.

“I’m not sure when we’ll start,” she said. “Maybe summer 2012 we’ll start shooting. It’s based on Hugh’s schedule, frankly. When he’s available, we’ll film. …He’s doing ‘Les Miserables’, and then he has to come and train for us. So it’s all dependent on him.”

And finally, onto Deadpool. The last update we got was back in April when visual effects artist Tim Miller signed on to direct. Donner told TotalFilm:

“We have a few more things to do. And then it’s up to the studio to decide whether we’re going to go forward or not, but I’m pretty excited. We have a good script and a good director.”

Donner then admitted “yes he was treated totally wrong in the Wolverine film”, but “we will redeem him”. The script by Zombieland writers Paul Wernick and Rhett is “an R script, it’s really irreverent and violent” so the studio is obviously taking a big risk here by making an R-rated movie with an unknown director. Plus Reynolds hasn’t had the best summer at the box office with Green Lantern and The Change-Up flopping.

Which, out of the three, are you most interested in seeing? A Vaughn-directed First Class sequel, Wolverine’s second solo outing (in Japan), or an R-rated Deadpool film?

You can pre-order X-Men: First Class from Amazon via the links below:

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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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According to The Vancouver Sun (via SHH) Hugh Jackman and the yet-to-be-announced cast of The Wolverine will be heading to Canadian Motion Picture Park in Vancouver later this year to begin shooting. Filming is set to take place from November 11 to March 1, 2012.

X2, X-Men: The Last Stand and X-Men Origins: Wolverine were also shot in and around Vancouver, so Jackman won’t be a stranger to the city. IGN recently spoke to Jackman and he mentioned filming will begin mid-October, so there’s a possibility production will start in Japan and then move to Vancouver.

You know James Mangold is directing it. You know it’s set in Japan. We have not really cast it yet, so there’s not a lot to tell you. Any other elements of the script I tell you, I’d have to kill ya.”

No release date has been set, but 20th Century Fox will probably be looking for a slot in late-2012 or early 2013. 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.

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