Replacing Aronofsky with James Mangold doesn't have me feeling very confident about this movie. 3:10 to Yuma was one of Mangold's better films, but it wasn't a great movie. The cast was wonderful and the acting was solid, but overall the plot had been done before and better. His last Hollywood film was the disappointing Knight & Day with Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz.

If Mangold and Jackman are serious about approaching the Japanese Saga with a Josey Wales type of approach I'd be all for that. The Outlaw Josey Wales is one of Eastwood's best films, and features a strong performance by Eastwood. Wolverine should be able to draw parallels from Josey Wales, who was a loner, a man of few words, and a man of action. Josey turns his back on society and embraces the Indian nation, which sounds perfect for the Japanese aspect of The Wolverine storyline.

Excerpt from his interview with moviefone.com

What voice does James Mangold bring?
Jim has done some great movies. Many, many different movies like '3:10 to Yuma.' We had an image of this movie like 'The Outlaw Josey Wales,' which I love. And he has a really great take on it. Yes, it's going to be different than Darren's version, but I think it's going to be just as great from what I've seen. And he's doing his tweaks to what is already a very strong script.

How disappointed were you that Darren Aronofsky left 'The Wolverine'?
Well, the good thing about this, and the reason Darren signed on -- I tried to get him to do 'X-Men 3' and 'Wolverine 1' -- the reason he signed on to this pretty much straight away is because I showed him the best script we've had. Now, the script is 80 percent, obviously. And the director is going to being their own voice to it.

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Excerpt from his interview with screencrave.com

Are you particularly excited for The Wolverine because it seems like Wolvie’s more or less an extension of you at this point because you’ve been playing him for practically a decade. You are Wolverine at this point.

I play it at home obviously. (Laughs) For parental control it really helps, trust me. So yes I’m very excited for it and I’ve always thought the Japanese saga was the ultimate backdrop for a movie. From X-Men 1, when I first started reading the comics, because I’ve never read them before… I don’t want to give away too much. You know, by the way, that saga is quite disparate. There are some that have got the wedding and the X-Men involved. And I’ve been waiting to make this movie all year so there’s been many reasons why I’m so ready to make it.

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