For about two seconds there, The Wolverine seemed interesting—the sequel chronicling the bushy-haired hero’s pre-X-Men time in the Far East was set to be directed by Black Swan auteur Darren Aronofsky and filmed in Japan.  Then Aronofsky quit (perhaps because he realized he was set to direct a sequel to X-Men Origins: Wolverine), and an earthquake rocked Japan.  Now, however, Hugh Jackman let it slip on Twitter that The Wolverine is back on, and begins shooting in late summer.

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In what amounts to a fairy-tale version of The Avengers, DreamWorks new film Rise of the Guardians assembles The Tooth Fairy (Isla Fisher), Santa Claus (Alec Baldwin), The Sandman, and The Easter Bunny (Hugh Jackman) to fight against the Boogeyman, Pitch (Jude Law). There’s no word if The Skrulls are involved, though Star Trek‘s Chris Pine is also in the cast. Check out the trailer below…

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When 2009′s Wolverine was about to hit theaters, a workprint hit the internet. Though the effects were incomplete it became a news story, and it was the biggest film to hit the pirate circuit pre-release. Piracy is still a huge problem for the industry, and those involved speculated that the leak cost the film untold millions of dollars. Now the person who leaked the film has been sentenced to a year term in federal prison, according to Deadline.

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And that’s not a spoiler (or is it?) After a couple of weekends of older pictures, either in days (Dolphin Tale took the #1 slot a week after release) or years (the reissue of The Lion King), the first week of October promises to deliver new movies can top the box office. Shawn Levy‘s Real Steel is a genuine crowd pleaser, while George Clooney‘s The Ides of March is a smart political thriller. Both use star power (Hugh Jackman, Ryan Gosling) to their advantage. But both also have strikes against them.

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When it comes to embracing a movie as superficially stupid as Shawn Levy‘s Real Steel, liking to loving it is almost like going through the stages of grief. Watching talented performers like Hugh Jackman, Evangeline Lilly, and newcomer Dakota Goyo make you invest in the tale of a boy and his robot boxer does lead to denial (“wait, how can I like a Shawn Levy Movie about boxing robots?”), anger (“This movie is manipulative!”, bargaining (“it works in spite of itself”), depression (“maybe it’s just the state of the industry, that the bell curve has been so lowered that Shawn Levy makes better movies than most now.”) and acceptance. Real Steel works, and it works the audience over in a crowd-pleasing way.

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Hugh Jackman was – at first – the replacement Wolverine. Stepping in for the contractually tied-up Dougray Scott, Jackman got the key role in the X-Men franchise that would come to define his career. Now with Real Steel, Jackman’s star-charisma is being used outside of Wolverine for a feel-good robot-boxing movie, that is an against-the-odds winner of a movie. Jackman has a repuation of being a class act, and he couldn’t have been more gracious in our interview, as he talked about the film, his continuing role in the X-Men franchise, and more. Check it out…

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Shawn Levy has made a number of commercial successful films, all leading to this point in his career. He’s taken the seemingly ridiculous idea of robots fighting each other, and turned it into a rousing, Rocky-fied night at the movies, and uses Hugh Jackman‘s star power at its highest wattage. Levy sees this movie as a turning point in his career, and he talks about the advice given to him by Steven Spielberg and Robert Zemeckis in our interview. Check it out…

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Real Steel, the Shawn Levy-directed, Hugh Jackman-starring, Robots-fighting movie comes out October 7, and is still deep in post-production. But DreamWorks executives are so thrilled with what they think they have they’ve hired the original writer – John Gatins – to start work on a second, according to Deadline Hollywood. they are also already contacting (according to this report) the main cast and crew for their possible return.

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After getting hit with a double whammy—his upcoming Wolverine sequel was set to be directed by Darren Aronofsky and filmed in Japan before Aronofsky quit, and Japan was besieged by an earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear reactor leaks—Hugh Jackman recently spoke with Coming Soon about losing the director and, potentially, the shooting locations.

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