Production on the frequently-delayed The Wolverine can't start until Hugh Jackman finishes up work on The King's Speech director Tom Hooper's musical Les Miseables.  That doesn't mean that there aren't plenty of people at work on the stand-alone X-Men universe movie as you read.  After all, the film is set for July 26, 2013, and an exceedingly cool new mocked-up piece of promotional art for the comic book movie suggests that somebody at Fox is doing a damn fine job.

A year ago, it actually looked like Darren Aronofsky's next movie would be the X-Men spin-off sequel The Wolverine.  That didn't happen, obviously, and rather than getting his adamantium on, the director has been trying get his Old Testament epic Noah off the ground.  One essential part of making a movie based on the story of Noah's Ark and the flood requires a proper Noah, and it looks very much like that Noah is going to end up being Russell Crowe.

A year ago, it was looking like The Wolverine would be filming in the summer of 2011 under the direction of Darren Aronofsky, who was at the time basking in awards season accolades for Black Swan.  That obviously didn't happen, and the sorta-sequel to X-Men Origins: Wolverine has suffered quite a few setbacks, but it would appear that 20th Century Fox has set up a new release date in the summer of 2013.

If you haven't effectively repressed the memory of medical dismemberment, psychotic breaking, imprisonment, and ass-to-ass, then you remember that Requiem for a Dream, apart from being an arbitrarily grueling cinematic experience, is a pretty effective argument against drug use.  In the decade since his sophomore feature, director Darren Aronofsky has gone on to become a pretty big deal, and he's once again returned to world of drug addition with a series of four anti-meth PSAs.  As you'd expect, given the horrific subject material and uncompromising director, all four are built to be as unsettling as possible while still airing on network television, providing a series of visceral, appropriately dramatic sampling of meth's effects.

RoboCop, director Paul Verhoeven's 1987 action/science-fiction/satire is brilliant, an audacious and intelligent skewering of dehumanizing American consumer culture that is probably even more relevant now, 24 years later, than it was at the time of its release.  As part of its post-bankruptcy strategy, MGM is moving ahead with a RoboCop remake that has been developing, in several different iterations, for years now.  While nobody can match Verhoeven's lunacy, the studio made an inspired choice with Jose Padilha, the Brazilian director who would make his American debut with the tale of Alex Murphy.  While it's still very early, the director has shared some crucial insight on his approach to RoboCop, and it sounds different enough to stand up as its own cinematic entity.

Though it was a hit at home and abroad, 2009's X-Men Origins: Wolverine was not hugely well received by critics or fans.  For the follow-up The Wolverine, 20th Century Fox has been looking to adapt Frank Miller and Chris Claremont's much-loved Marvel comics arc which finds the adamantium-infused mutant finding love and trouble in Japan.  After numerous setbacks this, the project is set to begin shooting in several months under new director James Mangold, making his first comic book-based picture.  There have been no shortage of rumors and rampant speculation about The Wolverine, but Mangold has gone on the record to discuss his approach to the material, including details on recent extensive rewrites to the screenplay.

After combining body horror, turgid hallucinagenic thrills, and ballet to Oscar-nominated effect with last year's Black Swan, the question of Darren Aronofsky's next feature directorial project has been an interesting one.  For a spell there it seemed he would actually direct his The Fountain star Hugh Jackman in the stand-alone X-Men story The Wolverine, but he exited that project in March and was subsequently replaced by James Mangold.  Rather than helming the exploits of an adamantium-sporting mutant, it looks like the auteur will be directing his passion project of Biblical proportions, as Paramount Pictures have partnered with new Regency to co-finance his long-in-the-works Noah.

Before he popped adamantium claws from his fists as the mysterious Logan in Bryan Singer's 2000 X-Men, Australian actor Hugh Jackman was more or less completely unknown to American audiences.  Based on his wildly charismatic performance as Marvel's single most popular mutant, however, Jackman became a star almost immediately.  While he's gone to roles in diverse films such as The Prestige, Van Helsing, and The Fountain, Jackman is still most associated with his signature role as the mutton-chopped shitkicker.

Though it was mauled by critics, the spin-off X-Men Origins: Wolverine was commercially successful, leaving 20th Century Fox eager to get Jackman back in his signature tank-top for another round.  Getting The Wolverine off the ground has not been easy, but there is now a new director in the form of James Mangold, with whom Jackman worked on Kate & Leopold before the director went on to helm Walk the Line, 3:10 to Yuma, and Knight and Day.  While promoting his new robo-boxing crowd-pleaser Real Steel, Jackman promised that The Wolverine is on the way, and also discussed the film's long development, including the recent hiring of Mark Bomback to provide rewrites.

20th Century Fox hasn't had the easiest time getting a sequel to 2009's X-Men Origins: Wolverine off the ground.  The Wolverine was meant to shoot this summer in Japan and New York under the direction of Black Swan helmed Darren Aronofsky, then he abruptly abandoned the project and a massive earthquake and tsunami left Japan as a less viable location.  Eventually, the studio settled on James Mangold to replace Aronofsky as director, and through it all, every indication was the Fox and Hugh Jackman were every shade of happy with the screenplay by Oscar-winning The Usual Suspects scribe Christopher McQuarrie.  Evidently not, as Mark Bomback has now been tasked with rewriting The Wolverine's script.

Though 20th century Fox was hoping to get production on the X-Men Origins: Wolverine sequel underway this Fall, it looks as though The Wolverine won't be going before cameras until Spring of 2012, according to a scoop at Deadline.  Keep in mind, since the production never had an official start date, so this change in schedule isn't really a delay exactly, but it was publicly known that the tentative plan involved getting Hugh Jackman back in the mutton chops and adamantium claws by October or November.