Earlier this week, Fox set a 2017 release date for the sequel to James Mangold’s The Wolverine, and today we have word that they’ve hired a writer as well. David James Kelly, who was previously attached to the studio’s Daredevil reboot, will pen the next solo Wolverine outing.
Kelly doesn’t have a produced feature to his credit yet, but he has been attached to a lot of interesting projects. In addition to Daredevil, he’s supposed to adapt the Dark Horse graphic novel Mind Mgmt, and his original pitch for Sentinel was picked up by Fox and Leonardo DiCaprio’s Appian Way.
The Wolverine was my favorite comic book movie of 2013, and that wasn’t because of a lack of quality from the others that were released. I thought it was an excellent look at the character with Jackman in his finest form yet. While he obviously can’t continue on as Logan forever, I certainly don’t think that the actor has hit his peak.
We still don’t know what ideas Kelly has for the sequel, but considering that he’s apparently working off an outline from Mangold, I’m very excited to see what else they can dream up for the character. Admittedly, the writer is a bit of an unknown factor, and I’d be more confident with someone more established taking on the project. That being said, the studio obviously has faith in him and with Jackman and Mangold back at the helm, I’m sure that fans will be treated to yet another very enjoyable solo outing for Wolverine.