In perhaps the least surprising news ever to follow an $85 million opening weekend, work has begun on a sequel to X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and star Hugh Jackman is also considering a whole raft of other films, including thriller Drive, Personal Security, and a new adaptation of musical Carous****el. He'll also be returning to Broadway in Houdini.
Let's take those one-by-one, shall we? The Wolverine sequel is - chorus it with us now - to be set in Japan, and will focus on the samurai / Yakuza storyline of the comics, wherein Wolverine trains in the way of the samurai in order to control his feral nature, and falls in love with Mariko Yashida, heir to a Yakuza family.
But that's not all. Jackman's also considering a role in Drive, about a racing driver who moonlights as a getaway man, and Personal Security, about a tough New York detective forced into bodyguard duty for a spoiled teenage heiress (we know which of those we'd rather see him play, incidentally, and it's the former).
Meanwhile Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Carousel has been in development hell for aaaages at Fox 2000, but is apparently now "a priority", with Jackman in line to play Billy Bigelow, a carousel "barker" and the romantic lead of the story despite criminal tendencies.
And then there's the musical in his planned return to stage - Houdini's based on music by Danny Elfman, lyrics by David Yazbek and Hairspray's Jack O'Brien directing. It's hard to get past The Prestige when talking about Jackman and stage magic, but he does like to keep his hand in with musicals inbetween mutton-chopped mutant outings, and this sounds like a good fit.
So, if you were Jackman, which of these options would you be prioritising? And which mutants, if any, would you like to see in a Wolverine sequel?