The Wolverine Wears a Suit!

No, not that suit.  But still, wouldn't it be awesome if Hugh Jackman showed up at the Oscars like this next month? 

The latest issue of Empire Magazine features this new image from The Wolverine, which opens in theaters this summer.  Besides being the first photo we've seen from the film where Wolverine is actually wearing a shirt (not that I had a problem with that), this is the first time in any of the X-Men films where we've seen Wolverine in a...is that a suit?  And a tie?  What is going on here?

Set after the events of the third X-Men film, The Wolverine is based on the popular Claremont/Miller saga from the comics, which has Wolverine tangled up with the Japanese criminal underworld.  Director James Mangold recently spoke about the adaptation, and his comments about bringing out Wolverine's beserker rage in the film:

"All that talk about getting darker and more intense had us wondering how that might affect the film's rating. "The whole point is not about violence or rating; it's about intensity," Mangold said when asked exactly how dark and dangerous things get. "I wanted to make a film that in a way captures the intensity of his character. One of the things that has always been a feature of Wolverine in the comics is that he has a berserker rage, that he has anger and some of his abilities are driven by something more primal." And how do you showcase the primal nature of those abilities? Easy, Mangold said: You give the character opportunities to get pissed off. "Honestly, to get really pissed off — not cute pissed off, not quippy pissed off, not funny pissed off or cigar-chomping pissed off, just pissed off — that can then help drive the fighting, drive the combat," he explained. "That is interesting for me and then for the character, some of the jet fuel underneath some of the combat in the film."

That certainly sounds promising.  The Wolverine opens in theaters on July 26.