Rice Paper and Bone Claws: 'The Wolverine' Teaser Poster

Sticking with my usual policy of honesty, I’m going to come right and say that there’s very little that could get me interested in Fox’s pending The Wolverine. Like many, I don’t much care for where the franchise has gone since the excellent second film (which is even to say that I didn’t enjoy First Class quite as much as others did, though I still liked it), and the only announcement that had my curiosity piqued came in 2011 when Darren Aronofsky flirted with the project before walking away. If you want to level an argument that my lack of familiarity with the source material, which has been described to me as a must-read, can be blamed for my indifference, well, I wouldn’t contest it with anything resembling enthusiasm.

But truthfully it’s the bad taste that the last Wolverine film left in my mouth that’s really left me cold here. It’s hard to show real blistering contempt toward a film that’s being directed by the guy who did Cop Land and 3:10 to Yuma and written by the man who penned things from The Usual Suspects to last year’s Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol; that just seems harsh. At the same time the first film (though Aronofsky stated it would be a one-off, not a real sequel) was a train wreck, which is the gentlest way I can describe it without sounding unprofessional.

So with all that in mind, let me just say that no matter how the film turns out, the teaser poster Fox released today is absolutely incredible:

Gorgeous, right? Whoever wound up outputting this really poured some thought into it; it’s not only beautifully done but compelling and evocative, no small feat given that it’s one quietly, humbly rendered image for a movie we haven’t seen anything else from just yet. As the poster says, The Wolverine hits theaters on 07/26/13; does this little preview poster increase your interest in the project any, or are you still wary after the last X-Man outing?

(Source: courtesy of Badass Digest)