Variety is reporting that David Benioff, the screenwriter for the recent Homeric adaptation, Troy, has signed a seven-figure deal with Twentieth Century Fox to write a film based on Marvel's most popular mutant, Wolverine.  According to Variety, Fox plans to have Hugh Jackman back as the claw-happy Canadian in Wolverine, and the studio is also proceeding with X3 in spite of the departure of X-director Bryan Singer (see X3 Writer on Board'). 

At this point no one knows whether the Wolverine project or X3 will reach the theaters first, although given the fact that the first two installments in the X-Men series have earned more than $700 million worldwide at the box office, both films should get made.

Benioff, who has adapted George Pelecanos' novel Right as Rain for Curtis Hanson at Warner Bros. and is working on two other literary adaptations, Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner and Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls, nevertheless maintains that he is a fan of the X-Men comic book series -- and it was his pitch to Fox for a Wolverine movie that got the project on track.