The ever-reliable release date database at Box Office Mojo has been updated with a July 26, 2013 bow for The Wolverine.  That same date is also currently occupied by the Phineus and Ferb movie, as well as the Kenny Ortega-directed Dirty Dancing remake.  This would make it part of a summer blockbuster season that also includes Iron Man 3, Pacific Rim, Robopocalypse, Fast and the Furious 6, Man of Steel, The Lone Ranger, and the Star Trek sequel.

In 2009, X-Men Origins: Wolverine made plenty of money but failed to find love from critics or fans, and The Wolverine is planned as less a sequel and more a stand-alone adaptation of the famous four-issue Japan saga by Chris Claremont and Frank Miller, with amnesiac Logan finding love and no end of trouble in the criminal underworld.

Aronofosky was rather improbably attached to direct until he departed the project in March of last year, setting Fox off on a search to find a replacement director.  In June, the studio selected 3:10 to Yuma and Knight and Day helmer James Mangold, who previously worked with star Hugh Jackman on Kate & Leopold.  The next delay was the result of Jackman's current commitment, starring as Jean Valjean in Les Miserables for The King's Speech director Tom Hooper. 

Oscar-winning The Usual Suspects scribe Christopher McQuarrie wrote the screenplay for The Wolverine, with Live Free or Die Hard scripter Mark Bomback brought in for subsequent revisions under Mangold's supervision.

Jackman will have to hit the ground running from one project to the next in order to The Wolverine to meet that July 2013 date, but the dude doesn't seem to have any problems keeping intensely busy.  Last we heard, it was looking to shoot principally in Vancouver, British Columbia this spring, which might be more like this summer, given the leading man's schedule.