'Wolverine' Coming in 2008!

We don't have to wait two years! We only have to wait one! In case you can't tell, I'm excited to hear the solo Wolverine spin-off will be hitting theaters in 2008, rather than 2009, as we've always thought. But is it true? According to IESB, it is. The site spoke with Wolverine director Gavin Hood -- twice -- and claims the guy said Fox is pushing the thing out next summer. However, Hood is also quoted as saying production doesn't even begin until either December or January and that it would take four months to shoot. So what is it, guys, is he starting filming in just under a month, or is he starting in a few months?

Either way, I'm still excited to know it's going into production soon. Wolverine, which star Hugh Jackman and Wizard magazine discussed in-depth recently, will lens in Australia and New Zealand and will apparently feature "other mutants such as Gambit" (but probably not Gambit; Hood merely acknowledged that "other mutants" would appear, and that could simply refer to Sabretooth, who we already know about). Other than that, IESB was only able to confirm that Wolverine would be rated PG-13 and that Hood seems to see the X-Man's story as something out of opera or Greek mythology, which he is more familiar with than comic books.

Despite my excitement as a fan of the comics and the character of Wolverine in particular, I have some reservations. I was probably one of the biggest critics of Hood's Oscar-winning film Tsotsi, and now that his follow-up, Rendition, is getting mixed-to-bad reviews, I hate to think that he'll also ruin Wolverine. The opera/mythology stuff intrigues me, but I hope he'll at least do some research into the comic books, and I hope he's more kidding than half-kidding in his telling IESB that he's only doing the movie to pay for his twins' college tuition. Let's pray Hood wasn't right in initially telling Fox that he's the wrong guy for this.