Are Mangold And Jackman Back For Another WOLVERINE?

Rumors about Hugh Jackman being done with playing Wolverine might be just that, rumors, despite the fact it was Jackman himself spreading them.

Deadline is reporting that Fox is negotiating with The Wolverine director James Mangold to rejoin Jackman on another Wolverine film. The deal supposedly pertains to having Mangold work on the treatment for the next film, but one assumes that he’ll be invited back to direct if he’s still interested.

The article treats Jackman’s involvement as a fait accompli, but Jackman was doubting in involvement as the character past X-Men: Days of Future Past at this year’s Toronto Film Festival:

“It may be the last. By the way, it didn’t hit me until three weeks before the end [of shooting ‘X-Men: Days of Future Past], because we promoted ‘The Wolverine’ and I came back on set with three weeks to go, and that’s when I went, ‘Well, who knows? Maybe there’s no more Wolverine. Maybe this is it. Who knows? Maybe. So I really made the most of those last few weeks. I enjoyed every time I put the claws on. I nicked everything off the set, so Halloween, come to me and I’ll hook you up. I keep saying it’s like two movies in one, but with the size of it it’s really three in one. It really is going to blow people away because of the story.”

While The Wolverine‘s $132 million and counting domestic gross looks quite underwhelming comparison to the film’s $120 million budget, it has made over $281 million overseas, making it the second highest grossing X-film to date. No wonder Fox wants another one.

No word on what the storyline will be, but I hope Mangold’s treatment for the sequel is more like the first 2/3  of The Wolverine and less like the final third.