Mere hours after Hugh Jackman was announced to headline Tom Hooper’s Les Miserables musical for Universal with the presumption that 20th Century Fox’s planned sequel The Wolverine would be delayed, Deadline is reporting that Fox and Jackman have a new first choice to direct the X-Men spin-off… James Mangold. Mangold previously directed the Oscar-winning biopic Walk the LIne for Fox along with last year’s Tom Cruise-Cameron Diaz action movie Knight and Day .

They’re saying that Mangold was on a short list that included Gavin O’Connor ( Warrior , Miracle ) and Antoine Fuqua ( Brooklyn’s Finest , Training Day ) and that they’ve started negotiations looking to start filming in the fall in Japan from the screenplay by Christopher McQuarrie.

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