Aside from Iron Man's Robert Downey, Jr, the big casting question all over Hollywood is Hugh Jackman as Wolverine. There are no highballing negotiations here, just age and the challenge of a new and interesting story.

On a set visit to "X-Men: Days of Future Past" the producer Hutch Parker had a group interview with the press. Collider got these snippets:

Q: Have you talked with Hugh Jackman on the set regarding the Wolverine sequel?

"You know, he's game. He loves the character. The challenge for us is to find the story. He needs that character's journey to be interesting to him as an actor. That's the key. And I think if we can do that he's game. The challenge is stepping back and being somewhat self reflective and figuring out where do we need to see him go next. But I think the studio would be supportive and Hugh would be supportive if we found the right story and the right script. That's what it always comes down to with these guys. While most of them love the idea of being in a franchise, they're smart enough as artists to know they need a script in hand that they can get behind."

Fox has gathered all its mutant mega-minds for the next X-Men installment but they have already locked on James Mangold to helm the Wolverine sequel. Fortunately for them, there are a lot of stand-alone Wolverine story arcs to choose from.

However, they are fully aware that the audience has had almost 14 years of this character, making Hugh Jackman the longest tenured super hero actor with a total of 5 movies (not counting the X-Men: First Class cameo). Should it also be the swan song for Hugh?

Parker would not spoil that, but he gives us this much:

"The studio have(sic) been bold enough to make this iteration of Wolverine will continue to be bold in willing to see that character go further afield. That's critical to these films. If you remake the same movies, you can kill these franchises. You have to be willing to take a chance and go in to territory that might be a little scary. But that represents taking the audience somewhere new. The studio seems very supportive of that so I can't believe we won't figure that out."

Fair enough that it will be a Wolverine we have never seen before.