Although neither James Mangold nor Hugh Jackman are officially attached to Fox's planned sequel to The Wolverine, both have now acknowledged they're discussing the script, which the actor said just last month "has to be great." And it appears the director is on the same page.

“I’ve talked with Hugh and he said he’d like to continue and I would love to do this again, but we’re just refining that story and working on making a script," Mangold tells The Wall Street Journal. "All other decisions flow from there."

Dismissing the idea of "audience fatigue" -- May's X-Men: Days of Future Past will be Jackman's seventh appearance as Wolverine -- Mangold says there's plenty of territory left to explore with the character. However, any sequel will center on one theme.

"I would just say it is always going to be about his relationships to other characters," he says. "We are very much trying to work with existing text. There are other great Wolverine stories out there but suffice it to say there are great texts about his connections to others, villains, characters from the lore and from the comics that we can bring out and have another great and meaningful adventure."

Mangold also addresses the difficulties in getting the character into his iconic costume: "Finding the rationale for a uniform when the character disdains self promotion, why he would put on some outfit that promotes himself as some kind of hero? It’s like Dirty Harry didn’t walk around with special outfit. There’s a difficult line to walk. He’s not a showoff, he’s the last one to put on a team jersey. The flesh and blood character is very loyal to that iconoclastic rebel who doesn’t seem to be the first to don spandex. It isn’t something I’ve talked about much. Some fans may be frustrated, but we’re trying to be true to his character. Who knows whether that will change, I cannot verify and will not deny."