After so many delays, rewrites, scheduling problems and directors playing Musical Chairs with this movie, I was almost beginning to worry that it wasn’t going to happen. Turns out I can breathe easy now, as we’ve been given a release date to wait for.

Hugh Jackman as the Wolverine

The magical date we’re awaiting is July 26, 2013. I think it’s a good date and lands smack dab between Iron Man 3 on May 3rd, and Thor 2 on November 15th, so we might be looking at another great year in Marvel Comics films.

The movie is going to be directed by James Mangold, a director whose work I can’t decide if I like or not. He did good on Girl, Interrupted and 3:10 to Yuma, but Knight and Day was dreadful. I liked Kate & Leopold, but it’s not really something that can be included in the measurements.

As expected, Hugh Jackman returns as the surly Canadian superhero in a story that takes place mainly in Japan. In the movie, he strikes up a romance with a Japanese woman whose hand in marriage is,  quite predictably and – for everybody involved – quite unfortunately, already promised to another man. Since our Wolverine is the sort of person who just won’t take “no” for an answer, it puts him into battle with her father and her samurai-sword-wielding brothers and Silver Samurai.