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EXCLUSIVE: James Mangold is 20th Century Fox’s and star Hugh Jackman’s choice to direct The Wolverine, ending one of the most competitive contests among directors for a major studio film. Negotiations are about to get underway, but I’m told that Mangold will take the helming job on the sequel to the X-Men spinoff film, a post that became vacant when Darren Aronofsky dropped out of the film in March. 
I’d heard that Mangold was on a very short list coming into this week, along with Warrior director Gavin O’Connor and Brooklyn’s Finest helmer Antoine Fuqua. I’ve heard that Fox will look to start principal photography in the fall. Scripted by Christopher McQuarrie, The Wolverine takes place mostly in Japan. Mangold most recently directed the Tom Cruise-Cameron Diaz starrer Knight and Day for Fox, and before that 3:10 to Yuma and Walk the Line. Mangold’s repped by WME and Management 360.
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Looks like leaving CAA worked out for him…
Poor Todd Feldman…
Wow, hopefully this movie is more 3:10 to Yuma and less Knight and Day. By that I mean, hope it’s good.
That’s the best Fox can do? Utterly lame choice…
agree. another guy fox can beat around and control. any of the other names would have been more inspired than this. this is Gavin Hood the sequel.
Hahahahahahaha. So it will be as lame as the first one. Huge pass for me.
A franchise desperately in need of a reboot… Mangold is just the right guy for the job. 3:10 to Yuma, Identity, Girl Interrupted and Copland are great films. I hear Fox is mostly to blame for Knight & Day. Gavin would have been a great 2nd choice, and Fox could have gone with Fuqua if they really wanted to kill the franchise (SHOOTER, anyone?).
Hope he knocks it out of the park!
LOL @ “kill the franchise.” The first Wolverine sucked. Antoine couldn’t have done much worse.
I’m with Josey. Worked with James recently and the experience couldn’t have been better. This is right up his alley and a big coup for Fox – esp after they bone-headedly let Bryan Singer walk away from X3. Look like they are trying to finally right the ship over there. Wolverine is most iconic of the X-Men, and the first film was SO not worthy.
“Let him” go? Singer dumped on them, just so he could ruin the Superman franchise. LOL. Maybe Singer was doing covert ops for Fox there, delivering a mortal blow to the competition?
He is talented and his 6 month stay at CAA did nothing for him but I bet CAA will claim they sent him the script and fire off a letter asking for a piece of the commission. And Cathy Konrad should be added to the project somehow
Meh, not the worst choice at all.
Great choice! Knight and Day misfired due to Fox, not his direction, everyone knows this. He is proven with 3:10, WALK THE LINE, GIRL INTERRUPTED, etc. Fox wanted an auteur and got one.
This is a terrific match for Mangold, and just rewards after he fired Todd Feldman and the CAA fakes to return to WME so they can deliver immediately. Now Todd can stick to fabricating stories why Marc Forster’s movie was ushered out of Lionsgate to get dumpy release by Relativity. Keep up the good work tlf.
he look good for a director why not
Great choice! Mangold is one of the best working directors out there now! Congrats to him and to Fox on a smart move.
I also think wolverine need a reboot, like X-Men First Class. In Japan there are many interesting plots that would make a great movie, like the introdution of the Silver Samurai, Logan’s marriage with Mariko and the obvious opposition from her father (Shingen), the training to control his animal instincts, etc. And wolverine is the best there is, and what he does isn’t pretty, so a little more blood and violence could be a bonus, but i realize this is difficult because of the target audiences (around PG-13).
Just my opinion anyway…
Mangold has made some good films, but why not Mark Romanek? He was by far the best director on the list.
Because he can’t finish a movie he starts.
I just hope this is better than ‘Origins’ and ‘First Class.’
First Class is fantastic and i am not the only one who thinks so? RottenTomatoes.com has it at 82/100. – So i will be pretty pleased if it will get anywhere near as good as first class.
Awesome. Another bland superhero flick.
This train has left the station folks. Aronofsky if he were left to his own devices would have given us something interesting. It may not have worked, but it would be different.
Mangold inspires zero confidence that this will be anything other than a cookie cutter middle of the road BLAH action flick.
I’m actually in favor of rebooting the whole x-men franchise at this point. Hugh Jackman is great in the role, but its time to put it to bed. There’s nothing else for him to mine from that character. He’s done it. Let it be. X-Men Origins was just flat out terrible anyway so there’s practically next to nil goodwill left.
The only way I could be excited is if Fox has the balls to do an intense R rated flick. The video game based on the first Wolverine movie was infinitely more involving and complex than the POS they released two years ago. But again its wishful thinking on my part.
This film is DOA!
I have a strange feeling this film is in trouble without Aronofsky! The Avengers will be a mess also.